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Well folks, what we have here is another culmination of miscellaneous crap, some raw materials and a little frugal ingenuity,
nahh not really, just a simple setup using some materials, all built around a simple oil drum that served as part of
a crude attempt at trying to save an old chicken tractor that was falling apart at the seams, literally.
The
drum was already set up with a large opening to serve the chickens that would be using it as a shelter/nesting box, plus it
had a trap door on the opposite side for use in cleaning the shelter or recovering eggs. I didn't want to let this drum
go to waste so I figured I would use this drum as the basis of another chicken tractor design, this time even better and longer
lasting than the last one.
The chicken tractor is made from pressure treated 2x4 lumber built into
a frame that measures 10 ft long by approximately 2 ft wide and high, with the oil drum nestled within the framework. The
drum only spans about 3 ft of the whole structure, with the rest covered by chicken wire and a plywood door covering the opposite
side from the oil drum.
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| The completed chicken tractor on its first night of use |
Construction was pretty straightforward and only took one good afternoon to get the thing completed and pressed into
service. Probably the hardest part was trying to cut through the pressure treated wood with a cheapo jigsaw, with the
saturated wood, that stuff takes way more effort to cut through compared to regular wood. At least the unit will last
a hell of a lot longer than it would if made from regular wood.
Making the chicken tractor 10 ft long given the 3 ft length of the drum allows for sufficient room for the smaller birds
that will live in the thing to be able to roam about outside, given its narrow width and short height. This is more
of a middle school for birds, once they get big enough to commingle with the grown birds, they get booted out.
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| Shot of fledgling chicken tractor with drum encased within wood frame |
With the framing going pretty quickly, putting on the chicken wire was the next step, which in and of itself also was
a quick task, thanks to a powered staple gun. One of the things we did do was place a piece of tin roofing over the
top, covering the drum and extending over into the chicken run area a little bit, to serve as a buffer to help keep the drum
cool, as well as provide a canopy for the birds to rest under during sunny days, and even during rainy days when they may
not want to be inside the drum.
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| Shot of tractor nearing completion, note tin roofing over drum. |
A final thing done to the drum to help in controlling temperature during the hot summers was to spray the drum white
(the thing was black). With that, there was the mounting of the wheels, which consisted of a couple of 1/2" lag bolts
about 5" long to fit the hubs of a couple of old lawn mower wheels. A couple of pilot holes were drilled in the 2x4
blocks we attached to the frame and the wheels with their bolts secured on the wooden frame, nice and strong.
After a piece of plywood was attached with two small hinges to the opposite side of the chicken tractor to serve as a
door, along with a little latch, a couple of decorative handles were attached to the top of the frame, above the door to serve
as the handles we use to move the unit around the yard.
With the success of this chicken tractor, I have already contemplated building more of these to have scattered about
the yard to serve as shelters for the baby birds we raise up in the spring time. This unit can probably work good for
bantam birds just as well. I would have to raise the dimensions of the framework to accomodate larger birds and add
to the support structure for the oil drum, not too big of a deal but enough so that I will probably limit the use of this
chicken tractor (and others like it) to housing baby birds. Still an overwhelming success though.
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| New chicken tractor online with birds housed inside |
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