What, More Chickens?!?

Susan asked, a while back, if the fancy-schmancy chicken tractor might be too confining for the chickens. Well, yes and no. Here's the saga -- to date.

We had started by putting the new little guys in but they seemed to be having trouble figuring out going to roost upstairs and were sleeping in a pile on the grass.

So we moved them to the big chicken house and selected three full-grown hens (the three who were most aggressively picking on our young chickens) as the new occupants of the chicken tractor. They moped a bit but seemed to be settling in. Still we felt kinda bad -- they'd spent years in the chicken yard with the rooster and the other two hens -- and now they were in a smaller space wondering what happened. Hmmm.

Eureka! We decided to try some bantam chickens -- a rooster and six diminutive hens. They'll get bigger but they'll still be half the size of regular chickens. They will lay small eggs (I can't wait to make deviled eggs with them!) and a bonus is that bantams will go broody (sit on a nest for the 21 days it takes to hatch out eggs,) a trait that has been bred out of many full-size hens. We can put big chicken eggs under them and raise our own replacements! If nothing don't happen that is -- don't want to start counting my chickens before they hatch -- or before the bantys get old enough to go broody.



The bantys are really cute -- and they seem happy as can be in their new home. Meanwhile, the three hens are back with their friends after the enforced time-out -- and not near so intent on pecking the young chickens.

I think that the key to having the chickens happy in the chicken tractor is to put them in before they're full grown and used to more freedom. John is building another chicken tractor for Justin and Claui's garden and we'll put three of the young Ameruacanas in. At least that's the plan.

Stay tuned for future chicken updates!

Chicken Tractor

The chicks have moved (well, been moved, squawking and protesting) into their fancy new chicken tractor, built by my husband John. In the UK it's called a chicken ark and we first saw one in the side garden of a Stately Home (to which we had paid admission) in the Cotswolds a few years ago. We were entranced; John took pictures and we thought someday . . .

It's an elegant system for keeping chickens out of trouble and on green grass. They peck and scratch, eat bugs and green stuff, leave their droppings, and when the grassy spot has been thoroughly worked over, you move the tractor to another spot. (I have a tier in the garden where fat bugs of some sort -- maybe sowbugs -- have wiped out my squash and I'd love to put these biddies there.)

There's chick food and water and at night they can trundle up the ramp to the sleeping quarters (I've removed a panel so you can see) where there's a roost awaiting them. There are also nest boxes at either end when they get old enough to lay.

The chicks are happy to be out of the box and in more natural surroundings and Ali Ali seems to have decided that he's a chicken guard -- he's run off the other dogs when they've tried to investigate.

We still have the chicken house and the five old hens and Gregory Peck, the rooster. As these young pullets reach full size, we'll move some to the chicken yard -- 6 t0 8 is probably maximum capacity for the chicken tractor.

If you're interested in backyard chickens, this is a great solution. More and more communities are allowing chickens in backyards (not roosters, however.) There are any number of websites with plans and advice on chicken tractors. We even found a site where we could buy one just like the one we saw at the Stately Home -- for the stately price of about $1500 -- plus shipping from the UK.

This one looks just the same (John found the plans on the Internet), cost about $150 in materials (including the feeder and waterer), and features some small improvements. It's a lot fancier than it needs to be (here's a cheaper easier one) -- you can find plans for building a perfectly nice chicken tractor using recycled pallets -- but what a lovely addition to the garden of our stately home!