Chicken Tractors

Posted by Phillip Richards Apr 15, 2007

Hens have been called chicken tractors because of their ability to work the soil. A popular and workable idea is to have two runs to a poultry shed. The hens are in one while vegetables and flowers grow in the other after harvest the runs are swapped over and the hens eat the up the greenery left and any residual insects. A new garden is made in the hen matured well worked soil of the original run.

It is not quite as easy as it seems in practice. Firstly the hens poked their heads through the fence and ate the new vegetables. The other problem was more difficult. We found that it was hard to arrive at the just right ratio of hens to space. If too few hens and strongly growing weeds would fill the run. If too many they would glean everything before we had time to harvest the other.

Another version of the idea is demonstrated by a group of children at a local school who have made a movable “ark” It is shaped like a triangular prism with a nesting section in the back and wire-netting for about two thirds of its length.

The ark can be moved daily to avoid the chicken tractor effect and to give the chickens fresh grass daily. The situation can be reversed so that the chickens remain in situ until the all the area under the ark is scratched up and ready for working.

Fruit trees overhanging the run can add shade and fallen fruit for the chickens.