Chicken Tractor - Construction of the Original Lawn Mower - 2

Check out this video for part two of the chicken tractor construction. We are added a nesting box, back panel for the detachable part of the coop, and a watering system for the chickens while there are cruising around the yard. In the first part of the chicken tractor construction I added the wheel system that lifts the coop up a few inches to be moved and then allows for it to rest flat on the ground once out in place in the yard.


The wheel system was the trickiest to engineer but the nesting box, back panel, and watering system took the longest to build. I had over 60 minutes of video that I tried to condense into this 12 minute clip!  Now the chickens have water and a place to lay some eggs while out and about the yard.


The idea of this and any chicken tractor is really two things. First, we want to let the chickens have some new ground to scratch through for worms, grass, bugs, and just some new scenery. Secondly, I wanted to be able to easily move the run away from the coop for an easy once per year cleaning of the chicken area. This way I can roll it out and while the chickens are in heaven scratching away on some new ground I can quickly cleanup and add some fresh dirt/sand to the run and then push it back. So far I think that this chicken tractor has met both of those goals and it makes the chickens lives a little better and mine as well!






This post has been shared at:  HomeAcre Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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Building the Chicken Tractor - Taking the Chickens Out to Eat

In this video, I am working on the conversion of the chicken run into a chicken tractor. There are several reasons why I would like to do this. The chickens enjoy eating grass, bugs, and scratching through a fresh piece of yard now and then. Also, it will allow me to move the run to easily clean the area where they spend most of their time. I have been wanting to get this done for quite some time but have been busy with other things this summer.



I have been looking for some old piece of junk on the side of the road somewhere that had wheels on it I could scavenge but have thus far been unsuccessful. I was able to pick up a small set of wheels at Home Depot that will fit the burden but not really the bill. I paid much more than I wanted to but they are some pretty sturdy looking wheels that should last a long time.

The main thing that I needed to tackle with this project was to build a hitch for my garden tractor and to build a system for the wheels so I could move them into position when I am ready to move the run around the yard. I still have more work to do here (build a nesting box, food scraps trough, roosts, and portable watering system. These will be done as soon as time permits and I will get another video that should cap this project off.






This post was shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop

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Semi-Automatic Chicken Feeder for Under $20

Here is the latest addition Todd made to our chicken coop.  The semi-automatic feeding system.  We had a difficult time trying to come up with a name for it because it's not automatic, but it sure does make things easier for us.  Our chickens are the sweetest chickens in this whole world, but they can get a bit crazy when their food dish is empty.  No more walking in the coop and filling the tiny feeder that we had, and this one is much cleaner.

Here is where we fill it (the pipe comes out right by the nest boxes):

This video runs through the build process for this simple feeder design and also shows it in action. The feeder should hold enough food for 2-3 days and will cut down on the amount of time spent cleaning out and filling the smaller feeder. This is also much better than the feeders that sit on the ground as they get full of dirt quickly.  We made the mistake of thinking their dish was full of food on several occasions, but it was full of sand instead.

The 4" drainage piping used for this project is much cheaper than the 4" schedule 40 PVC. The fittings for the drainage pipe are also much cheaper keeping the cost of this project under $20.





This post was shared at:  Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, HomeAcre Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, The Homestead Barn Hop

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Clean & Simple Automatic Chicken Watering System

Tired of cleaning the chicken water dish?  In this video, I will show you the process I used to build our no-maintenance watering system and install it in our chicken coop.  This system was designed to tie into a future rain barrel system that I hope to setup soon.

To teach the chickens how to drink from it, I held each of their beaks up to the chicken nipple until the water dripped out.  It took a few tries for each bird over a period of a couple days, and only when I took away their plastic dish and they were thirsty enough, did they really catch on to the chicken nipples.  The chickens have been exclusively drinking from the nipples for about three days now.


I hope this helps inspire some ideas for your coop as well!

Thanks for watching,

Todd

 

 

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New Baby Chicks Week 6: Not Babies Anymore & New Watering System for Coop

Do all of us chicken mamas think our chickens are the best, smartest, and prettiest chickens ever born?  Love must be blind because we really like our chickens a lot.

And our girls even have different colored eyes!  Ours must be eggstra-special (okay, I'll stop).

But seriously, they have been out in their coop now for two weeks and everything has been going extremely well.  No casualties, and they seem very happy. 

Todd also finished the watering system in the chicken coop.

They can access their water outside under the coop.......

....or inside. 

It holds a little over 2 and a half gallons of water, here is where we fill it.  We hope to hook it up to our future rain barrel system one day.


























It took them just a few days to learn how to drink from it. Several times a day, Todd would hold each one and put their beaks up to the chicken nipple, but only when we removed their plastic watering bowl did they finally figure it out. 

Two days ago, they started going into their coop at nighttime on their own.  Up until then, we had to pick up each one and put them in the coop.  That was making me extremely frustrated because they would not go willingly and it would take the girls twenty minutes each night to get them in.  It was mad chicken/children chaos every night at bedtime.   The neighbor kids would even get in on it, too.  Needless to say, we're VERY glad that instinct finally kicked in. 

If only we could convince the kids to go to bed on their own........






This post has been shared at:  The Homestead Barn Hop, The HomeAcre Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop



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New Baby Chicks Week 4: Moving Out to the New Coop!

How is this possible?  Five weeks ago, we stopped at our local TSC store and picked up six peeping, fluffy, yellow baby chicks and now they've already moved out on their own?  Doesn't seem right. 


Todd finished the chicken coop in the dark over the weekend.  Our neighbors are pretty used to the sound of his saw and hammer after dark. 


The chicks have been living in an alien spaceship-looking cardboard brooder box in our basement for the past four weeks.  I highly recommend making something like this out of your old moving boxes and duct tape.  We lined it with pine shavings and only had to clean it once (only having 6 chicks probably made that possible).

Our 8 year-old daughter, Kayla, wrangled, or as she called it,"strangled", each chicken one-by-one and moved them into the coop.

We moved the heat lamp out to the coop because nights are still a bit chilly here in Michigan.  (Plus, they're still BABIES, right?)  



"It's a looong way down if we fall off the chicken ladder, let's all just wait right here and wait for someone to go first." 

Todd has been putting a few more finishing touches on the coop.  Webcam, solar lights, you know, the "usual".   It's been a couple days since they moved out and they are doing great. 

 

I'm still getting used to our empty nest. 

 





 



 

This post was shared at:  The Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop

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Detachable Chicken Run/Chicken Tractor

In this video I go through the steps to construct the chicken run which will become the chicken tractor as well. This is designed to attach to the chicken coop and be detachable to be moved around the yard. The idea here is that the chickens can safely scratch a new area of the yard each day or at least a couple days per week. This helps to keep the chicken run area cleaner, helps to spread their manure around the yard, and fertilizes the grass. As soon as the entire project is complete a final walkthrough and demonstration will be posted.

Thanks for watching!

Todd

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Caring for Baby Chicks Week 3: Raising Friendly Chickens & Coop/Run Update

Here is the third update on raising our baby chicks!  Our chicks are currently living in a homemade brooder box in our basement.  They seem very happy! They have been extremely easy to care for.  The girls have been holding them everyday and they are turning into friendly little chickens.  They are also very curious of us and like the attention.

Todd is also currently working on the detachable chicken run.  We plan on moving them out to the coop next week, so he will be working hard to get the run done this week. 

FYI - These chicks were purchased from TSC on 3/30/14 and are between 4-5 weeks old.

Enjoy and let us know if you have any questions or tips for us!

:) Lisa

 

 

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From SSL Mom - New Baby Chicks Week 2 Update

Here is the second update on raising our baby chicks!  Our chicks are currently living in a homemade brooder box in our basement.  We have not lost any and they seem very happy.  They have been extremely easy to care for.  We have also completed their chicken coop and included photos of that as well.  The chicken coop has a built-in tray for easy cleaning.  The next step is to build the detachable chicken run.  Enjoy and let us know if you have any questions or tips for us!

: ) Lisa

So far, our coop has only had kids in it! 

The kids love the egg-shaped door :)

 

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From SSL Mom - Caring for Baby Chicks Week 1: Bringing Home the Chicks & Coop Update

Very exciting news!  On March 30th, we brought our very first baby chicks home from our local TSC store.  It took us some time to pick them out.  TSC keeps their chicks in troughs and most of the troughs were not sexed.  Since we live in a subdivision, we wanted only hens and no roosters.  Some very helpful employees explained to us that two bins were sexed, and we purchased six of the ISA Brown pullets (females).  After reading online that it is very difficult to sex chicks, we are still not convinced our chicks are 100% females, but we'll see!  Six is the minimum that we were allowed to buy.  We had only planned on 3 chickens, but are happy with our decision. 

We want to raise chickens for their eggs.  We are still not convinced meat chickens are for us just yet.  We were happy to learn that the ISA Brown chickens are very productive egg layers at approximately 300 eggs per year.  They are a cross between the Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White chickens.  They are also very docile, quiet (for a chicken) and friendly.   

This video will give you highlights from the first week of bringing home our babies.  The baby chicks will stay indoors for approximately 4 more weeks, while they grow and the chicken coop is built.  Todd started building the coop last week as well.

Thank you for watching, we will keep adding updates of our chicks and the coop.  Please let me know if you have any questions or tips for us! 

:)  Lisa

 

 

 

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