Pasture-raise your chickens in tractors for the safest, healthiest meat and eggs!
So far it’s providing plenty of room for our 30 chicks to feed at, but since eating is a social event for chickens and most of these chicks like eating at the same time, we anticipate probably adding another when they get bigger if we need to. Check out our What We Use page for a link to the galvanized feeder.
Pasture-raising vs. Free-ranging
Pasture-raising chickens is the preferred method of many backyard chicken keepers. Lots of people swear by free-ranging their chickens for the happiest, healthiest chickens, keeping maintenance of the coop to a minimum and getting the most nutritious eggs.
Free ranging your flock can be very beneficial, but it comes with an increased risk of losing some of your birds to predators. Just about every animal out there loves to dine on chickens and/or their eggs! Chickens are in danger of attacks from foxes, raccoons, skunks, snakes, hawks, eagles, dogs, cats, and many others! It’s a mean, dangerous world out there when you’re a little chicken!
Mobile chicken tractors are the best way to keep your chickens happy, healthy and also very safe!
Keeping our chickens out on fresh, green pasture, they get to nibble on grasses, clover, worms and bugs as much as they want but they also have constant access to feed and water. For our laying hens, we have decided on solar/electric fencing around our chicken coop. It is a relatively safe way to raise chickens and protects them from almost every ground predator. However, unlike with a tractor, with the electric fencing there is still a danger from aerial predators.
The Danger of Predators-Hawk Attacks our Sweet Hen!
We have had some personal experience with this problem. In January, we had the unfortunate experience of one of our laying hens being attacked by a hawk! Luckily her injuries weren’t too severe and she did survive, but not without much trauma and healing time. She was in shock for about 2 days and this is when she got the name “Daisy” because she was dazed and confused. Poor baby.
Daisy had to be separated from the other chickens for a month while her wounds healed and she was never really welcomed back into the flock. Unfortunately, she has never regained her position in the pecking order and still struggles with being picked on by some of our more dominant hens! You can see more pictures of Daisy below.
Tractor-keeping chickens is a win-win!
There are lots of benefits to using chicken tractors. Pasture-raising your chickens on fresh green pasture is an inexpensive, low-maintenance way of keeping chickens. With a quick move of the tractor once in a while, your chickens are healthy, clean and happy, eating as much greens and bugs as they can find. You have less feed to buy, NO cleaning to do, and lots of free fertilizer for your pasture! This method also keeps your chickens safe from predators!
A Farmhouse Style Chicken Tractor
Here is the hybrid chicken tractor Martin built this spring for our flock of Freedom Rangers. I wanted it to coordinate with our other chicken coop as well as the house and barn, so we sheathed it in the same colors of metal sheeting and black hardware. You can see how he built this neat little all-in-one coop and run in this YouTube video!
We love our “Chick Lift”!
A Chick Lift is a device that has wheels. You install it on the back of your mobile tractor/coop and engage it simply by stepping on it with your foot. Martin puts down the “Chick Lift” wheels and pulls the chicks to a new patch of fresh green pasture every morning! We also got their Pull Kit. Martin installed these on our portable tractor which makes it much easier to pull around. You can find a link for the Chick Lift on our What We Use page as well as a direct link to their website below.
A “Chicken Tractor” is a Safe ‘Home on the Range’ for our Freedom Ranger Chicks!
Once our baby Freedom Rangers were nearly fully feathered, we moved them into a brand new mobile chicken tractor that Martin built just for them! The brooder was getting a bit too crowded for these growing little cuties and they have been loving it outside! It did get a little too chilly a few nights so we installed a heat lamp temporarily in the tractor to keep them warm.
Many Benefits of the Tractor Method
The tractor method is an excellent way to keep your animals safe from aerial and ground predators, provides shelter from the elements and gives your a fresh new salad bar to enjoy each day. A quick pull to a new spot is all you need to do each day to keep them clean and healthy. If you use a tractor with fewer animals in it, you wouldn’t need to move it as often.
Tractors also keep your maintenance work and expense to a minimum because you never have to buy or change out bedding or shovel the coop poop! Since chicken manure is excellent fertilizer, your grass will love it too! I’ve seen many styles of tractors, and some even incorporate an enclosed coop section which is perfect for laying hens too! A tractor could even be adapted and used for rabbits too.
I can not wait to share pics and videos of our flower gardens and farm animal updates with you this summer! I’ll share more pictures and stories right here on the blog, as well as in some videos on our YouTube channel.
We’ll keep you posted right here on the Blog, so be sure to check back to see how the chicks are coming along! I hope you’ll visit again to see who else is coming to White Oak Farm very soon!
Truly,
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” -Nelson Mandela
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