Mon 17 Apr 2006
In order to help clean up the garden, I built this chicken tractor to move about the place. It’s a little heavy, but slides over the grass smoothly. I may fit some wheels on at some point.
So far, the 10 lucky chicks have been moved 4 times in 8 days and don’t seem to mind. I always move them in the morning while they’re still locked in their little house. At some point, when they are larger, I will have to reduce the number of birds in the tractor, but for now they seem content enough.
By leaving the tractor in each spot for two days the chicks seem to get plenty of grass/weeds and stir up the ground a bit. Outside the garden I let them crop down the grass and dig a bit. In the garden beds I’ve let them really dig up the beds and root out the weeds as much as possible in two days. I’ve been supplimenting their diet with the usual mix of grains thrown on the ground.
It takes a bit to move the tractor each time, but not having to pull the weeds or till them in should be great. Plus each bed should be well fertilized for planting later in the month. Once the garden is cleaned up and the cover crops are consumed and soil amended, I’ll have to work out a program of moving the chicks around the place. I may have to rotate out a few and transfer in some others from the main chicken run. As a small scale experiment I think this works great and I would easily add another tractor or a larger one to our setup. This current one may soon be a part of our specialty breeding program. . . .an attempt to get a decent “old time” meat bird without relying on the cornish cross breed.
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