Using a chicken tractor may be the best way to raise meat birds. From a productivity, ecological, and animal welfare standpoint, a chicken tractor provides benefits over both confinement and free-range options. Find out if a chicken tractor is a good fit for your farm.
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In case you didn’t know, Cornish-cross meat chickens are easy to raise, fast-growing, and delicious. This is why we raise them every year for our freezer and to sell to friends and family.
However, they are also messy and more vulnerable than other chickens to sickness, injury, and predation. The way that we minimize these issues is through the use of a housing system called a chicken tractor.
What is a Chicken Tractor?
Chicken tractors are essentially mobile chicken coops. There are endless options for type and size. We have an A-frame (see picture above) and two hoop style tractors here on our farm. They can be short and box-like or tall enough for an adult to walk in.
Most offer some form of shelter and shade for the chickens, as well as a “run” area for free movement and grazing. They also contain equipment for feeding and watering. To move the animals to greener pastures, they may have wheels and a trailer hitch or, like ours, just a rope for hand towing.
So, why do we use them? There are many benefits to raising meat chickens in this fashion ranging from animal health and well-being to revitalizing the land.
1. Using Chicken Tractors Helps Keep the Animals Safe
Cornish-cross chickens grow very quickly and are not built for speed. In a free-range situation they are extremely vulnerable to predators because they are easily seen (white in color) and easily preyed on because they lay around a lot and cannot fly or run very fast.
In a secure tractor, the chickens can safely graze and rest without being an easy target for foxes, dogs, racoons, hawks, and other opportunists. The open bottom on the tractor does pose a risk for predators digging underneath but close monitoring, daily moving, and guardian dogs can help negate this. Not overstocking the tractor with chickens and building or purchasing a tractor with small openings can help prevent predators from being able to reach in and grab animals as well.
2. Using Chicken Tractors Helps Keep the Animals Healthy
Cornish-cross chickens eat a ton and poop even more! Meat chickens that are kept confined in a barn face health concerns from being in and around so much fecal matter. In contrast, chickens in a tractor get moved to a fresh area daily. As a result, they are at much less risk for disease and parasite infestation and stay healthier because they can forage for insects and worms that add nutrients to their diet.
In addition, ventilation is a huge issue with confined birds. The aerosolized fecal matter and dust from chickens kept in a barn is a heath concern for the animals, as well as their caretakers. In a well-constructed chicken tractor, continuous air flow from the wind provides much needed ventilation.
3. Using Chicken Tractors Helps Keep the Animals Happy
A happy chicken is one who can do natural chicken activities like scratch the ground and take a dust bath. Our Cornish-cross chickens don’t get to free-range like the laying hens, but they do get to move around, graze and forage, and feel the breeze in their feathers.
Our animal’s contentment is important to us and the meat birds really seem to love the chicken tractor life. They don’t live a long time, but we make sure that they enjoy the time that they get to spend here.
4. Using Chicken Tractors Helps Keep the Animals Clean
As I mentioned earlier, moving the chickens to an area of fresh pasture every day helps to keep them clean, and cleanliness has a direct relationship with health. What’s more, an additional benefit of keeping your Cornish-cross chickens bright white is that it can help you market them to potential customers. No one wants to buy a dirty bird!
5. Using Chicken Tractors Helps Control Yard Pests
Chickens LOVE eating insects! A bonus of having meat chickens in your yard is fewer flies, ticks, termites, beetles, and other pests. Not only do they love eating the adult insect, but gladly devour them in their larval stages as well. Finding treats in the soil adds variety to the chicken’s diet and gives them something to do all day!
6. Using Chicken Tractors Helps to Fertilize the Soil
Meat chickens make plenty of manure and this can be of benefit to the soil. Chicken poop is high in nitrogen phosphorus, and potassium. Our grass grows taller and denser after a chicken tractor has been in that area.
Don’t let it get out of hand though! Too much fresh (not composted) chicken manure can be harsh on plants. If too much is in contact, it may kill the vegetation. To avoid damage, and actually benefit the soil, chickens should be moved daily at minimum. In higher stocking situations (more birds in one area) moving more than once daily may be necessary.
7. Using Chicken Tractors Eliminates a Dreaded Chore
I don’t know anyone that enjoys cleaning out their chicken coop. It’s a messy, dusty, stinky job! Keeping your meat chickens in a tractor, instead of confined in a coop or barn, means that you never have to clean up after them.
Moving the chickens daily to new pasture allows you to provide fresh bedding without ever lifting a shovel or pitchfork! Think of the time, and energy, that you will save and can use to complete other farm chores.
So next time you want to raise a batch of meat birds for your freezer, put them in a chicken tractor. You, your chickens, and your lawn will thank us!
Mother, farmer, author, and teacher by trade… She loves tending to things and watching them grow!