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With a chicken tractor, you can let the fowl till up the sod.

You can build your own chicken tractor with these plans.

Exactly five years ago to the day, my first article on homesteading was published in The Morning News. That inaugural article described how to make a ‘chicken tractor,’ or moveable chicken coop. To commemorate the occasion, I thought it would be fitting to revisit the concept.

Chicken tractors are called such because they can be moved around, and the chickens inside the coop till up the ground beneath it. The poultry love eating the grass, bugs, and worms, all while being protected from weather and predators. However, you will still need to feed them pelleted diet, scratch grains, or another standard chicken diet. The soil, having been shallowly cultivated and fertilized with their wastes, is ready for renewed grass growth, or for planting vegetables or flowers.

My original design worked just fine, but recently, I built a new-and-improved model. I upgraded it with more durable materials and more square footage. It currently houses three large, happy roosters.

This chicken tractor consists of a small shelter elevated off the ground, a roof made of corrugated plastic panels, and a wooden frame with chicken wire or welded wire “open” walls. The structure rests on wooden skids, and there is no floor, other than the ground. The materials needed to build this coop will cost less than the flimsier, smaller chicken coops that are available at local agricultural supply stores.

The dimensions can be modified, but I built a chicken tractor that is 4 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 8 feet long. For framing, I used pressure-treated 2-by-2s screwed together at the corners. I drilled pilot holes to prevent splitting the lumber. I used heavy-duty staples to attach welded wire fencing to the framing of all of the open walls.

The shelter is made from exterior-grade ½-inch-thick plywood, which I painted for even more weather resistance. Essentially, I made a box that is 40 inches wide, 32 inches high, and 24 inches long. The back has a hinged door that is 18 by 20 inches, for accessing the shelter from the outside. If you plan on keeping laying hens in there, build a nest box at least a cubic foot in size. The rear door allows for the occasional clean-out, and if you have hens, for egg collection.

There is a perch inside the shelter, 9 inches up from the floor. It’s a 1 ½-inch-diameter dowel that spans the width of the shelter, and is attached with screws driven in through the side walls.

The front of the shelter, inside the main area, has a chicken-sized cutout of 9 by 4 inches. The chickens climb a ramp made out of a short length of deck board to access the shelter.

The skids are made from treated 2-by-4s on their sides, and angled at each end to facilitate skidding it along the ground. The roof is made from two 8-foot-long corrugated plastic roofing panels screwed into the framework.

You will need a waterer and feeder in the run, and a hinged door on the side wall to access them every day. I hang the feeder from the roofing framework, and prop the heavier waterer off the ground on a concrete block. Arrange the feeder and waterer at the breast height of the birds.

One or two people can drag this chicken tractor around, with the chickens still inside. It would be easier to move if there were small wheels at one end. I move it from place to place after the chickens have scratched the sod into dirt, about every two weeks.

This structure is ideal for no more than a half dozen chickens. I use it to house my surplus roosters, to keep them away from the laying hens and to put some distance between me and their loud crowing.

Finally, if you’re a regular reader of this column, I appreciate your interest in my homestead endeavors. If you’re not, you can find all of my previous articles online by searching my name and “scnow” or “Morning News.” For those that have kept up with me through these years, you know I am fond of ending with a bad pun. This time, however, I’m not sure if I should go there. It would just be a fowl joke.

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With a chicken tractor, you can let the fowl till up the sod.

You can build your own chicken tractor with these plans.

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