Why Move the Chickens?
One of the keys to healthy chickens is frequent movement on good, clean pastures. This provides the chickens with bugs, grasses and other greens, sunlight, and fresh air. It ensures that they are never sitting in their own feces. It also helps heal the soil by improving organic matter proportionate to what the soil can matriculate. This improves water holding capacity and the home for even more bugs and microbes.
Frequency of movement is a function of the kind and quantity of chickens in a given square footage. Meat birds, since they eat more than laying hens, poop a lot more, and so need moved more frequently if we hold square footage constant.
Mobile Chicken Coops
To facilitate this movement, we have used several designs of mobile chicken coops over the years: wooden A-frames, metal A-frames, and Joel Salatin’s mobile chicken tractor, which we now exclusively use.
The houses have to be heavy enough to withstand winds and light enough to move. They also should be designed to help the chicken want to move in the direction you are moving the house. Since chickens, like people, are phototropic (we naturally seek the light), the house should be designed with that in mind. Moreover, the house should be designed for other aspects of the chicken’s nature. They want some areas of light and some darker because that mimics the forest where they are from.
Our first A-frame was excessively heavy, required two people to move, and failed to take into account the phototropic nature of the chicken.
Our second metal A-frame design which we learned about from a famous farmer on youtube was too flimsy to handle Emmitsburg’s winds. It also required two people to move, in part because it failed to take into account the phototropic nature of the chicken. The chickens would hang around the back unless someone was there to scare them forward. In the back they are more likely to get run over by the tires of the back-dolly or the back wall.
Third Design: Joel Salatin’s Chicken Tractors
Last year we decided to use mobile chicken tractors designed by Joel Salatin, the father of pastured poultry. We bought Joel Salatin’s book that gives the plans for what he uses. This was the best investment we have ever made with respect to animal husbandry. It takes advantage of Joel’s nearly 50 years of trial-and-error in the field of pastured poultry.
These mobile chicken tractors are light enough for one person to move, heavy enough and flat enough not to be disturbed by heavy winds, and take into account the phototropic nature of the chicken. Meat chickens, contrary to our first model’s assumptions, do not need to roost, and by the time they are 8 weeks are really too big to roost anyway.
Joel’s chicken tractor model is sturdy, compact, and easily mobile. We engage the dolly in the back and the chickens naturally want to move toward the front, because that is where the light is.
It has reduced the labor for chicken morning chores by at least half and enabled us to ensure that the meat chickens are moved to fresh, seasonal pasture every morning (and sometimes even twice a day!). This frequent movement ensures that the chickens are maximally healthy, the soil is maximally healthy, and you too can be maximally healthy.
Check out this short clip to see how I move the chickens each morning!
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