Now that the Cornish Cross meat birds now reside in our freezer, the chicken tractor that they occupied is now vacant. This tractor is a spacious tractor with roosting bars, a hanging bell waterer and a hanging feed trough. The fact that everything hangs allows you to push it each day with ease. You don't have to reach down and pick up items off the ground prior to pushing it one length forward. To a chicken, this is prime real estate, allowing them to be safe from predators and to forage on fresh green grass each day.
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| A view of the amenities of this posh real estate |
You can observe from the photo below that part of the chicken tractor has a roof and part has a chicken wire top, allowing the birds to choose whether to lounge in the sun or shade. Russ and I made some minor repairs to the tractor. This is just routine maintenance that a landlord must do when a tenant (meat birds, in this case) moves out. We're going to allow our 25 pullets to upgrade their current living arrangements from their current 'single wide starter home' into a bigger dwelling.
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| Movin' on up! |
Here is their single wide that they've occupied for the last 8 and 1/2 weeks of their lives. We moved them out of the brooder and into this tractor when they were 2 weeks old. You can see how this tractor has protection from the elements on two sides, which is especially important for small birds. The larger tractor is wide open to the elements which allows for air flow and sunshine to disinfect things.
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| Cabin fever |
One nice feature that the smaller tractor has is a hinged roof that makes it easy to get inside or lean over to fill feed troughs and waterers. When the birds are younger and not able to fly out, I'll open them up and allow sunshine in.
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| A sun roof option |
Below is a picture of the happy pullets on fresh grass. If you could see how 'factory' birds live indoors and in small cages, you would know why our birds think Our Maker's Acres Family Farm is heaven. Well, we're about to make things even better as we're going to give them a little more elbow room.
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| Life is Good! |
I got my fishing net that I've extended the reach by duct taping an old hoe handle to and started snaring the pullets.
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| A bird in the hand... |
The other birds were all frightened by me grabbing their buddy with a net and huddled up in the corner.
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| You bunch of chickens (literally)! |
One of them actually jumped up and flew out and escaped and I had to go running through the pasture chasing her with the net. See the escapee below near the turkeys?
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| On the loose |
Finally caught the girl and put her into her new home. My plan is to leave them in this tractor until they begin to lay eggs and then open the door so that they free range during the day and they'll return to roost each night in the tractor. If things go as planned they'll be laying in around 14 weeks and it can't come soon enough. The current hens' egg production has dropped significantly with the heat of summer. We're only collecting 8 - 10 eggs per day and that is with 60+ hens! Not good.
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| A bird's eye view |
Here is a closeup shot of the hanging bell waterer and the hanging trough full of feed.
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| Just hanging around |
In no time the pullets had grown accustomed to their new home. It is supper time.
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| Ringing the dinner bell |
I think the pullets are happy tenants in their new home.
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