The Chicktrac 3000

I got the new chicken tractor in the yard today and divided up the chickens.  This one is shorter and wider than the first with a door in the house part.  I gave this one a coat of verithane that I had left over from when I refinished the hardwood floors.  I couldn't bring myself to buy the kind of water seal that goes on decks when I had this almost full can rusting on the back porch.  I would have waited and added a piece to keep the food off the ground so that I didn't have to pick it up each time, but I thought it was about to rain.

I put the five road island reds and the five dominickers in the new one.  At first I just started grabbing the closest chicken, but then I remembered what happen last time.  I figure if I keep the numbers even maybe they won't attack each other.  Like prison gangs and nuclear weapons it's best if both sides are a even.

A place of their own

They grow up and move out so fast seems like just yesterday they were in the house chirping all freaking night. Oh, that was yesterday. They have survived their first night outside. I'm not sure how cold it got last night, but we hung a light inside the enclosed part of our new chicken tractor. Probably for a week or so they will be able to all crowd inside this one. This week I will build another one so that we can divide them as they get bigger. Finding how many we can have in each one will be the key. Three in each one eventually seems right, but it is hard to tell. The hardest part at this point will be moving the tractor without smooshing a baby chick. They seem to be happy to have dirt and grass at their feet. Last time we had chicks it didn't take long after this age for the different breeds to turn on each other. I had no idea that even hens could be so aggressive.

CHEZ POULTRY

With the little fella's growing up fast we had to have a place for them to wait for their day in the pot. The chickens we have now get let out of the coop most days freely running around the yard scratching and pooping. This works pretty good, but sometimes they wander off during the day or just don't come back when it gets to be dark. The chickens were just got will spend their days in one of these chicken tractors were building.

Every day or so we will move this portable coop so they have access to fresh grass and bugs and the massive amounts of poop will be spread out amongst various parts of the yard in desperate need of free fertilizer. Right now were thinking maybe three chickens to a tractor, maybe four. We figure this is a much better deal than they would be offered in a massive chicken factory. I call it a factory simply because I don't know what you call em. I know the raw chicken flesh filling grocery store meat isles didn't come from anything that could be called a farm and I am pretty sure a chicken ranch is only legal in certain parts of Nevada.


I figure if you include the 2x2', plywood and poultry netting we will spend about twenty five bucks making one of these. The sheet metal roof will salvaged from the old barn, but if we had to buy that we could chuck on a another ten bucks. A whole chicken ready for roasting is about seven, so only about four or five chickens have to die for us pay for our investment. With real estate and the stock market in the crapper that's a return you can't beat.

The chickens have ended thier strike

For the last month or so our chickens have been on strike. Not one egg for almost a month. This could have easily lead to a bunch of tasty pots of chicken and dumplings, but so far we have let them live in peace. Today the gave four eggs and may have bought themselves so more time on the big blue marble. However, their days are numbered.

Being almost three years old they have moved past their prime laying time and probably hould have been eaten by now. This year we are going to expand they chicken production around the yard, but we haven't decided how many we are going to go with. We will probably go for another twenty or so laying hens. Last time we started with twenty four, six of each of four different kinds. Now we have three rhode island reds and three dominickers left. One of the the groups of six that we started with was pretty quickly killed by the other groups. I guess the term pecking order means something after all. I had no idea they would go after each other, but they would pick a chicken and just peck at through out the day. Once it was bleeding they would just go after it more and more until it was dead. I am not sure if having a rooster keeps order or not. I know the rooster will help to round up strays and make free range chickens go back into the coop at night. Since rooster are mean we decided to wait till the kids are a little older.

This time we are going to start with two kinds, although we haven't picked them yet. One kind will be for eggs and the other for meat. Yep, gonna be some killing around the farm. Having never had to actually kill something to eat I am not sure how this is going to work out, but if I have a problem doing it I should settle in with a nice salad. I think the hard part won't be the killing it will be the nasty business of cleaning the carcass. All the blood, guts, feet, heads and such. I am so very used to my neatly shrink wrapped packets of flesh.

We are going to keep these more seperated for each other by building chicken tractors. The are like a long short framed box covered with chicken wire that you put the chickens in and then move everyday so they get fresh grass and bugs. Great for lawn, good for the chickens. Picking the eggs out of the coop today I realized I need to hurry up and get going or spring time will be here and past before I get any built. Tomorrow I am going up to the old barn on the corner of the property to see what supplies I can salvage. I know I can some corrugated sheet metal for the tops and maybe I can get a little wood too.