2017 Meat Birds - 6 Weeks Old

Well, we had quite an adventure last night that bridged over into a good part of the day today.  This kept us from doing our normal "Wednesday Weigh-in" as I was unable to post last night.  Normally I don't post on the weekends, so I'll likely explain everything that happened in Sunday night's post.

So here we are a day late...  Without further ado, let's get this ol' boy up on the scale. He's a clean bird, with snow white feathers, huge feet and red comb.  He has a red wattle, too.  Do you know what the wattle is?  The wattle is the loose flaps of skin that hang beneath his chin.  It is said that the bigger the wattle is, the more hens are attracted to him.  I read that the rooster's wattle tells hens (somehow) that they have food they are willing to share.  First, I don't know how humans figured this out and secondly, I've watched these birds eat.  I am convinced that this guy is NOT interested in sharing food with any other bird!

Up on the scale he goes...

This rooster weighs in at exactly 4 and 1/2 pounds today.

Here are the results from Week 6:
*Week 6 2017:  4 pounds 8 ounces
*Week 6 2016:  5 pounds 1 ounce
*Week 6 2015:  2 pounds 9 ounces

To summarize, last week they weighed on average 2 pounds 15 ounces and this week 4 pounds 8 ounces. That means they gained 1 pound 9 ounces over the last week.  That is a substantial weight gain. They are still 9 ounces shy of where they were at this age last year, and almost 2 pounds heavier than what the 2015 birds weighed at this age.

I have to be honest and say that I'm surprised at the weight of this bird.  We aren't weighing the same bird, but I try to pick an average sized bird each week and always a rooster.  The hens are all smaller.  I don't know if I've told you this year or not, but we always try to shoot for a 6 pound bird as they yield a 4 and 1/2 pound carcass.  We find that this is the perfect size for our family.  It fits nicely into a gallon-sized Zip Loc bag and the meat is tender and tasty.

I zoomed in on a profile shot of this good looking bird.

It looks like with the weight gain we picked up this last week, we are well on target and back on track for a butcher date perhaps on Week 8, but I'd say more likely on Week 9 or 10.

Blueberry Hill

These are three of our six blueberry bushes.  Each year they have produced more and more.  We eat a bunch of them fresh, bake with some, make bunches of blueberry pancakes and then individually quick freeze the rest to snack on throughout the year and to make delicious breakfast smoothies with.  The blueberries have done well in the spot where we planted them.

They have me a little concerned this year, though.  Prior to the growth of the fresh, tender green grasses of spring that have begun to peak up above the soil, we had some marauding chickens that weasel their way through the hog wire perimeter fence and forage through the yard for tasty morsels.  They especially like scratching at the base of the blueberry bushes and have been successful in scratching away all of the mulch that surrounded the bushes for the past several years.  While I'm sure they exposed some worms and beetles and bugs for them to feast upon, they also exposed a lot of the roots of the blueberries.

Chicken Scratch

While I'm no horticulturist, I think that those exposed roots will be susceptible to the hot sun and wind and they will dry out and hurt, if not kill, the plants.

Exposed Roots

Right now the blueberries are still in good health.  In fact they put on tons of blooms and are absolutely loaded with little berries.  We'll see if we get favorable rains and weather that will ensure a bountiful harvest.  In the mean time I need to take care of them.

So the local hardware store had a sale on mulch this past weekend.  Four bags for $10.  Tricia picked up a few bags and after a rain shower, I put some mulch around the base of the plants to replace that which the chickens scratched away.  This mulch should protect the roots and keep them from drying out.  It should also (hopefully) frustrate the bermuda grass that competes for nutrients at the base of the plants.

I did read that you aren't supposed to pile up the mulch too high around the plants and have 4-6 inches maximum.  I think I'm in line with those recommendations.

I'm counting on a bumper crop of blueberries this year from our own blueberry hill to provide some homemade blueberry jelly.  I added an additional 50 feet of 4x2 welded wire fencing that I wired over the hog wire to discourage the scratching, but I'll keep my eyes open for those tresspassing hens.  Violators will be prosecuted.

Plan B for Blackberries

After milking chores were done Saturday morning, Tricia and I had a good cup of coffee on the front porch.  There was a thunderstorm blowing in from west to east and we watched while the rain fell against the newly plowed field.  It was peaceful and relaxing to watch the much-needed rain and wind blow through.  We sat and watched it until the rain started getting us all wet.  Then we went inside.

In the photo you can see the field on the other side of the road.  That outside levee was our wild dewberry patch.  They would come up every year and we'd go out to the ditch with buckets and pick them.  We would come back and make Dewberry Jelly.  We've posted about it HERE.  With the field being plowed up, we waved farewell to our wild dewberry patch.  Well, it wasn't really "OURS," was it?

But we weren't giving up without a fight.  I called Russ and it just so happens that his Horticulture Club at LSU was having a plant sale.  Wouldn't you know it?  In addition to vegetables, herbs, and trees on sale, they were selling berries - blackberries, in particular.  The specific variety he selected for us to try was the Arapaho Thornless Blackberry.  These were developed by the University of Arkansas.  If they produce, even though I'm an LSU Tiger, you may hear me "Call the hogs!"

Russ purchased two for us to try.  The directions said to dig a hole twice as big as the root ball, place it in the hole, backfilling with compost and watering to remove air pockets.

Benjamin and our nephew, Mike, helped plant them and then mulched with hay. The cows provided moral support.

We watered them in good and now we'll just watch them grow.  They are planted right by the muscadine vine trellis.  The Arapaho thornless blackberry can be grown on a trellis, but don't have to be.  I read where they produce berries on second year canes.  If that means what I think it means, we won't have blackberries until next year.  That's okay as we still have a good inventory of blackberry jelly in the pantry.

The other interesting thing I read about them is that cuttings can be taken off of them and rooted very easily.  We may need to do exactly that to get enough blackberries to make jelly.  We'll see how things go.  After thinking about it, it looks like we have a good blueberry crop coming along this year.  Perhaps we can make some Blueberry Jelly this year instead of Blackberry Jelly?

Reclaiming the Garage

For the past month or so, our garage has been invaded by almost 100 birds.  Two brooders have occupied a spot that normally houses our vehicles.  One brooder was full of Cornish Cross meat birds.  Those were moved out to the new chicken tractor over a week ago as they had outgrown their brooder.  The 17 Rhode Island Red pullets don't eat nearly as much food and don't grow as fast, but by this weekend, they needed some more room.  Not to mention the fact that we wanted to  reclaim our garage.

Saturday was moving day.  I caught each pullet by hand.  Unlike the meat birds, these really run around and were hard to catch.

Eventually I captured all 17 of them and packed them like sardines into a homemade carrying case for critters.  I used this to carry all of them out to the pasture and to their new home - the chicken tractor.

The chicken tractor that I'm moving the Rhode Island Red pullets to is nothing fancy.  In fact, it is old and in need of replacing, but it will serve its purpose as temporary home for the pullets for the next 20 weeks.  When they lay their first eggs, we'll open up the gates and set them free.  Until then, they'll run around in here on grass.  I'll push them to fresh grass each day.

I placed them inside the chicken tractor and they didn't know what to do at first with all the "elbow room"  they now enjoyed.  They were nervous and disoriented and ran to the corner, huddling up.

Overnight we got a nice rain.  I went out and checked on the pullets first thing in the morning after milking.  I brought along some chicken feed to put in their trough and refilled the water containers. They were acclimated to their new environment by this time and were running around inside their new home.

This week I'll move the last remaining brooder out of the garage.  I would have moved it out this weekend, but we were watching a Cornish Cross meat bird that was looking sick.  We were going to move this bird into the former Rhode Island Red brooder as a sort of Urgent Care facility to attempt to save it.  However, it seems to have made a stunning recovery

I'll go ahead to move the last remaining brooder out of the garage, reclaiming it for our use.  The birds belong out on pasture anyway.

A 350 Year Old Live Oak Tree

This morning my work took me to Opelousas, Louisiana, a small town sitting on Highway 190 between Eunice and Krotz Springs and nestled right on the outskirts of the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.  Between jobs, we opted to visit the Palace Cafe for a cup of coffee.  Walking in was like stepping back in time to the 1960's.  A handwritten menu by the cash register announced the lunch specials on the steam table:

Fried Chicken

Chicken Stew

Field Peas

Broccoli & Rice Casserole

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Mustard Greens

Cornbread

We took our seats in a booth and spotted a waitress talking to another lady stirring food on the steam table and called her over.  With a stern look, she put her hands on her hips and said, "Can't you see I'm busy?" Then she burst into a big smile, walked over and said, "What can I get for you, sweetheart?"  Time slowed to a snail's pace as we visited and sipped on strong black coffee that you could stand a spoon up in.  The cup never got half empty before the waitress refilled it with steaming hot coffee.

As we exited the Palace Cafe and walked eastward about 20 feet, I spotted a huge live oak tree that created cool shade for a whole city block.  It was the Jim Bowie Oak with a historical marker.  The tree is 350 years old.  That means it began growing in the year 1667.  That kind of makes you scratch your head.  If that tree could talk... Jim Bowie likely sat under this tree and enjoyed coffee while he sharpened his famous Bowie knife and told tales of his adventures.  Sadly, he never returned from the Alamo.  Anyway, I copied the inscription of the historical marker below, if you can't read it.

Jim Bowie Oak

This giant live oak tree is over 350 years old and is named in honor of legendary adventurer and hero of the Battle of the Alamo, Colonel James "Jim" Bowie, who lived in Opelousas for part of his life.

The Jim Bowie Oak is a charter member of the Louisiana Live Oak Society. The Jim Bowie Courtyard, located behind the oak, is built on the site of what is believed to be a blacksmith shop belonging to Bowie.

I've watched both movies of The Alamo, the 1960's version starring John Wayne and the 2004 version starring Dennis Quaid and Billy Bob Thornton.  The bravery and valor of a band of heroic men (Texians and a band of volunteers from Tennessee) as they made a last stand against General Santa Anna's men always fascinates me. Those guys seem larger than life... Davy Crockett, William Travis, Jim Bowie...

I love this quote and its message of courage and conviction:

"I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH."  excerpt from William B. Travis's letter To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World

 In THIS POST FROM NOVEMBER 2015 I tell of our history with the Alamo.  Tricia and I were engaged in San Antonio and that post, if you click on it, tells the sad story of an oak tree we grew from acorns I picked up on the day we were engaged 25 years ago from one of the Alamo oaks and how we are trying again 25 years later with another.

Below is a photo of that oak.  While it's not quite as impressive as the Jim Bowie oak, and is only 16 months old versus 350 years old, it is a touchstone.  

Surrounded by a world in which everything is disposable, temporary, and fleeting, it is nice to have an oak tree or a marriage that stands the test of time.  Remember the Alamo, indeed.

2017 Meat Birds - 5 Weeks Old

The Cornish Cross Meat birds have been out on grass for over a week now.  I see them nibbling a bit on the fresh grass as soon as I move them to a fresh spot each day, but overall, they sit down and come running as soon as I bring the bucket full of feed out.  They eat.  They poop.  They sit.  That is their life.

The new chicken tractor is working out perfectly.  We are expecting some rain Friday night, so I will fasten a tarp over the tractor Friday afternoon.  I still keep the heat lamps on them at night, but it has been warming up into the mid-80's each afternoon, so we turn off the heat lamps during daytime hours.

I added a second feed trough (gutter) so the growing birds all had room at the "table" and also added an extra gallon-sized waterer.  They are going through the feed and water.

I walked out with a 5 gallon bucket and picked up a bird of average size, making sure it was a rooster.  I placed him into the bucket and walked back in the garage where I have the kitchen scale set up.  I put a sheet of newspaper over the scale so they don't soil the scale and place the old boy on top.

The bird felt a little heavier than last week, but I could tell that it wasn't a tremendous weight gain. Here are the details:

Here are the results from Week 5 :

*Week 5 2017:  2 pounds 15 ounces
*Week 5 2016:  4 pounds 

*Week 5 2015:    2 pound 4 ounces

So to summarize, last week they weighed on average 2 pounds 4 ounces and this week 2 pound 15 ounces.That means they gained 11 ounces over the last week.  That is the same weight game as the previous week. They are still 1 pound 1 ounce shy of where they were at this age last year, and 11 ounces heavier than what the 2015 birds weighed at this age. 

Outdoor Cookin' - Dutch Oven Jambalaya

Last weekend we made a homemade pizza in the dutch oven and Benjamin and I decided that we would try to cook outside as often as we could.  On Sunday afternoon Tricia went to Baton Rouge and left us at home.  We figured we would break out the Dutch Oven and get busy on a Shrimp, Sausage, and Chicken Jambalaya.  

The ingredients are:

• A splash of oil in the bottom of the pot
• 1 lb. Cormier's smoked sausage that we cut up
• 1 medium onion chopped up
• 1 cup bell pepper chopped up
• 1 cup celery chopped
• Emeril's Essence Cajun Seasoning
• 1 cup rice
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 1/2 cups beef broth
• 4 bay leaves
• a sprinkle of thyme
• 12 oz. medium shrimp
• 1/2 cup cooked chicken

We got 36 charcoal briquettes burning (15 for the bottom and 21 for the top) and coated the bottom of the pot with oil.  When the pot was sizzling, we threw the sausage in the pot for 2 minutes.

We then added the onion, bell pepper and celery, along with the cajun seasoning and stirred.

After about 10 minutes the vegetables were starting to get translucent.  We stirred the dish up with a big wooden spoon.  

We then added all the other ingredients like rice, broth, garlic, bay leaves and thyme.  After it simmers, cook for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, add in the shrimp and cooked chicken.

With the lid off of the pot, cook for an additional 10 minutes and then it is time to eat!

A quick review of the meal: The flavor was phenomenal! I mean the seasoning was perfect.  The aroma coming out of the pot had me salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs.  It was delicious, but it could have been better.  Here's two areas where I messed up.  First, after adding the broth I cooked it for 20 minutes.  What I should've done was wait for it to simmer AND THEN start the timer for 20 minutes. Secondly, there was a strong wind blowing Sunday afternoon.  This accelerated the briquettes burning and by the last 10 minutes of the cook time, the briquettes were cooling off.  I had to light up some more charcoal in the chimney starter and place under the pot.  By this time, however, the briquettes were far too hot and the jambalaya began to stick a little bit to the bottom of the pot.  I kept stirring constantly to keep it from sticking, but in the end, I had to remove the pot from the fire to keep it from burning the meal.  Pulling it off the fire prematurely made the jambalaya a tad bit 'too liquidy.'  That's okay, though.  We ate a bunch of it.

While cooking outside, Benjamin saw something up in the tree and went and got his rifle.  One shot and he had a big fat squirrel on the ground.

He cleaned the squirrel and put it in a ziploc bag in the freezer alongside some previously killed squirrels.  I think Benjamin wants to cook a dessert like bread pudding with rum sauce next time we pull the dutch oven out, but maybe the time after that we can cook a pot of squirrel stew!

A Day to Honor Russ

Saturday we met Russ at 11 a.m. at the Petroleum Club in Lafayette for a meeting of the Louisiana Society for Horticultural Research (LSHR).  They were honoring their scholarship winners and Russ happened to be one of the two deserving recipients.  We were invited to a luncheon and to see him get recognized. Russ is a senior at LSU and will be graduating on May 12th.

His mother and I are proud of the hard-work and diligence he's exhibited.  I never even thought about applying for scholarships once I was already in college, but Russ did.  Each semester he would seek out scholarship opportunities, applying for them - and winning them.  He's worked for LSU's Dairy department, milking 80 Holstein cows to provide milk for the residence hall cafeterias as well as for sale to Borden's.  For the past several years, he's worked with a professor at LSU tending to sweet potato trial plots in Louisiana and many neighboring states, seeking to develop a new variety of sweet potato to help the sweet potato industry.

Seated at the far right of the head table below, is the guest speaker for the luncheon, Mr. Robert E. "Buddy" Lee.

Mr. Lee is from Independence, Louisiana and is one of the most respected plant breeders in North America.  He developed Encore Azaleas, the world's best-selling multi-season azaleas.  They bloom in spring, summer, and fall. You can learn more about them by clicking HERE.  Mr. Lee gave a fantastic talk, showing pictures of early work in the nursery, compared to today.  His speech was both informative and funny and really kept your interest. As you may be aware, I like growing things that you can eat!  Flowers and ornamental plants are things I don't have a lot of experience with, but it was interesting to listen to Mr. Lee talk with great passion about what he does.

At one point, he stated that everyone always wants to see his "research facility."  He showed a picture of what appeared to be a 16' x 8' greenhouse with trays of seed pots with simple shop lights hanging over them.  He stated that he likes to keep things small since he can effectively manage and control everything.  You can't argue with his success.  It was an inspiring story from a pioneer in the industry..

Russ was called to the podium and gave a short speech thanking the group for believing in him and awarding him the scholarship.  He was very well received by the horticulture professionals in attendance as well as the LSU professors.  They all had great things to say about him.

So obviously, we're Russ' parents and are very proud of him (and biased), but we know he's going to do great things in his field.  He's not even sure what exactly he's going to do upon graduation.  He hopes to find a job as a plant breeder or researcher for one of the nurseries in Forest Hill, Louisiana or for a landscape company in the Lake Charles or Lafayette area.  If Russ can find something that he is happy doing and looks forward to getting up each morning and pouring his energies into, the rest will take care of itself.  With his work ethic and smarts, he'll set the world on fire.  I just know it.

Go Dig in the Dirt

Back when I was a young boy, we would go over to my grandma's house and she would do something that I remember to this day.  She would hand us some silverware (not real silver, mind you, but still good eating utensils) and tell us to go dig in the dirt.  We would grab the spoons she gave us and we would go to a spot between her house and a few camellia bushes that grew beautiful pink and red blooms.  It was there that we would dig.

I can still remember the smell of the cool moist dirt that was in that shaded area.  It was almost black and was made up of years of decomposed leaves of live oak trees. Since there was tons of organic matter there, the soil was loose and easy to dig in and teeming with earthworms.  We would look for treasure in that soil and when we were done, we would go turn our spoons in to Grandma and go seek out another adventure.

Well 40-something years later and I still have a spoon that I like to dig with!  I don't think Tricia would appreciate me digging with one of the spoons we eat with, so I have an old spoon that I picked up somewhere.  I use it to dig holes for planting seedlings.  I also use a plastic fork for digging the seedlings out of the seed pots.

Armed with my spoon and fork, I pulled all of the tomato seedlings from the cold frame on the back porch and got them all planted in the ground.  It was nice to have that done.  Last week I had moved the peppers from the cold frame and transplanted them in the garden.  I did this at a time that coincided with about 3 cool nights.  This seemed to stress that peppers even though I had them hardening off on the back patio for a while.  They were looking a little rough and I may have even lost one of them.  Fortunately, the warmer temps lately revived the drooping peppers.

Once I had each hole dug with my spoon, I filled the hole with some organic soil, put a Tablespoon of organic vegetable fertilizer in the hole and then placed the seedling in the hole and covered it up.  I placed some compost around the little plant.  I'll keep my eye on all of our transplanted tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.  

Since this is my spoon, I don't have to turn it in to anyone at the end of my digging adventure.

Moving Day For the Meat Birds

There are a few predominant factors that guide me in determining when to move the meat birds out of the garage and out on grass.  The first is the age of the birds. I usually try to move them out around the 3 to 4 week old point. The weather plays an important role.  I'm not going to move them out if rainstorms and cold weather are in the forecast.  Finally, the smell or better yet, stench of the birds.

There comes a distinct time at which it doesn't matter how often you clean out and replace the bedding in the brooder, the fowl fouls it up with the quickness.  It is a sickening smell that permeates the garage and when you open the back door, the odor wafts into the house.  Flies become ever present in the garage and they make their way into the house when the door is opened.

Sunday afternoon of this week, I raised the white flag of surrender and transported the birds out of the garage.  Fortunately, the Gorilla Cart wagon was a great help in performing this task and we had the birds moved in 4 trips.

The meat wagon

They were deposited in our newly built chicken tractor out on grass.  Fresh clover was growing, the sun was shining, and it was a good day to be a meat bird. Freedom from the confines of the indoor brooder, more elbow room and fresh grass to eat.  Once they were moved, I cleaned out the soiled bedding from the brooder and moved it to the compost pile in the garden.

It was a little chilly and the birds bunched up a bit to signal that they were cold.  To remedy this I put a tarp over the chicken tractor to act as a windbreak.  I also hung two heat lamps from the 1x4 that spanned the top of the tractor.  The birds were happy after that.  I added an additional waterer, bringing the water capacity within the tractor to 3 gallons.  Those birds sure drink a lot of water.  As far as food, they eat a lot of that, too.  I originally placed a pvc rain gutter in the tractor and two days later placed another one.  A pvc rain gutter is the cheapest and best feed trough you can imagine.  You get the biggest bang for your buck using a pvc rain gutter as a feed trough rather than a store-bought one.

Now each day, I pull the tractor one tractor length so the chickens are on fresh grass each day.  I learned a lesson the hard way that I need to slow down and get Benjamin to come assist when pulling the tractor.  I pulled it too fast Monday afternoon and the birds bunched up and one of the birds died.  A second was stressed and I revived it.  The first bird, however, was beyond saving, so I got my knife and butchered it.  It was exactly the size of a Cornish hen.  That bird now resides in our deep freeze.  In total we've only lost 4 birds.  That isn't bad at all, considering the fatality rates of previous years.

Well, that's enough for chickens.  Next week I plan on blogging about anything else but chickens.

2017 Meat Birds - 4 Weeks Old

This evening for the weekly weigh-in on Wednesday night, I had to walk out in the backyard to get the birds.  Yes, I moved the meat birds out of the garage this past Sunday afternoon.  They were really just stinking and the flies were getting bad in the garage.  Since we use the back door primarily, we were having flies come in the house and that's not good.  So we moved them out and I'll likely talk about that in tomorrow's post.  It has been a little chilly the past several nights and the birds don't really have all their feathers, so they bunch up under the heat lamp to stay warm.

Under the heat lamps

 I walked out with a 5 gallon bucket, and picked up one of them, put him in the bucket and brought him in to the scale in the garage.  Last week I showed you how I marked the bird we're weighing by tying a ribbon around its neck.  Well, that didn't last a day.  It fell off and I found the ribbon on the floor of the brooder.  Since we're going to eat these birds, I don't want to put paint on their heads, so here's what I'm going to do: I'll just pick up an average sized bird each week and weigh it. It won't be the smallest and it won't be the biggest.

I took the bird out of the bucket and placed him on top of the scale.  He has a wide, muscular stance and his legs look like they are too big for his body.  He is a monster, for sure.

The four week old bird weighed in at 2 pounds 4 ounces this week.

Here are the results from Week 4 :

*Week 4 2017:  2 pounds 4 ounces

*Week 4 2016:  2 pound 15 ounces

*Week 4 2015:    1 pound 4 ounces

So to summarize, last week they weighed on average 1 pound 9 ounces and this week 2 pound 4 ounces. That means they gained 11 ounces over the last week.  They are still 11 ounces shy of where they were at this age last year, but a full pound heavier than what the 2015 birds weighed at this age. 

Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part II)

In Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part I) we showed you the progress on our new chicken tractor, the design, and how we started constructing it.  Tonight we'll continue.  Last night we built the basic skeleton and added some bracing to make it stronger.  We took two rolls of 3 foot tall welded wire fencing, stapled it to one of the 2x4's on the bottom and rolled it over the top, cutting it off with cutting pliers and stapling to the 2x4 on the other side.  Then we used zip ties to fasten it to the pvc. This process was repeated all the way across until we had the entire curved structure enclosed in fencing.  Fastening the fencing to the two ends took a bit more time.  The bottom was easy as it is a straight cut.  The top required cutting and then using wire to fasten to the pvc hoop. Once done, it enclosed the end nicely.

I wanted to show a few shots to show the bracing supports that added a lot of strength to the chicken tractor.  First some metal conduit with wooden dowels tightly wedged in each end allowed us to run a screw through the pvc hoop and into the wood in the conduit, tightening it down.  Then a 2x2 was attached vertically with a hole drilled to allow us to run the conduit through it.

The very top of the 2x4 had a notch that accepted the 1x4 top brace, supporting the frame securely.  This was screwed in to keep it from moving.

On the other side, a door frame with bracing was added.  Everything but the doorway was shrouded with welded wire fencing.  This discourages predators.

A door with a latch was installed and this enables us to walk into the chicken tractor without bending over. The door is covered with chicken wire and has adequate bracing to make it sturdy and strong.  Notice the trap door at the bottom.  Once the birds are trained to roost in the new chicken tractor, I'll only open the trap door during the day, allowing the chickens to come and go as they please and I'll close it after they are all inside at night.

I am very pleased with the design of the new tractor and how it turned out.  Tune in on Thursday where we will finish things up. A couple of quick comments is that the tractor is tall enough to not have to bend over when walking inside, and that is nice! Instead of pushing this tractor, we will pull it. Notice the rope draped over the top on both sides.  It runs through the 6 foot 2x4s with a knot tied in the rope on the backside.

Tomorrow we will weigh the meat birds at 3 weeks old and then perhaps finish this series up on Thursday.

Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part 1)

In This Post I talked about the dilapidated condition of our chicken tractors and my quest to build a new one.  In the post I linked above, I explained three things that I was looking for in a new chicken tractor design.  I scoured the Internet for a design that I could build upon, making a few changes.  I found exactly what I was looking for HERE. That unique design met my criteria of being economical to build, durable, and lighter. We'll build one as a prototype and make any changes necessary to the second tractor.

I did alter the plans a bit to make it taller, so that I could walk inside it without bending over.  I added more hoops and a few other amenities that I'll discuss in this post and maybe one or two more posts to follow.  I discussed my project with a real good friend at church.  He is a master craftsman who I admire greatly.  His attention to detail and ingenuity in figuring out different ways to do things never cease to amaze me.  When he asked if he could help with the chicken tractor project, I was ecstatic.

On what might have been the most perfect day of the year, we assembled our building materials:

• Three 12 foot treated 2x4s
• One 12 foot 1x4
• Five joints of 1/2 inch schedule 40 pvc pipe
• Screws
• Cordless drill
• 7/8" spade bit
• Two 50 foot rolls of welded wire fencing, 3 ft high
• Cable ties

Since we determined that we wanted five hoops for stability, we marked out and drilled five holes, evenly spaced, in two of the three 2x4s, drilling perhaps an inch and a half deep.  For the third 2x4, we cut it in half.  The length of our chicken tractor will be roughly 12 feet long, while the width will be approximately 6 feet wide.

Then with heavy screws with a 'star' bit, we formed up the base of the tractor, putting two screws in each side.  By screwing the 6 foot 2x4's on the inside of the 12 foot 2x4's, we gained an extra foot and a half of interior area.  I was unaware of this, but now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.

Once the base was together, we simply began inserting the pvc pipe just to ensure it fit properly. Yes!  Things are taking shape.  We continued putting all five joints of pipe in the base.

Prior to doing this we put the 1x4 alongside the 12 foot 2x4s and marked where the holes were drilled on the 1x4 and drilled corresponding holes.  We took off one side of the pvc and threaded the pipe through the 1x4 and back into the base on the other side as you can see below.  The 1x4 gave the chicken tractor strength and stability AND will allow us to hang a waterer, and heat lamps from the hoops.  The "boss lady" came and inspected our progress and was pleased.

We added some bracing to each side with pvc pipe screwed into the skeleton of the tractor at 45 degree angles.  We also used 10 smaller screws to anchor the pvc into each of the 10 holes in the 2x4's so that they wouldn't pull out.

This is turning out mighty fine.  It was time for a break and we decided to start up again tomorrow, so I think that is what we'll do now.  Please join us tomorrow for Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part II).  I can't wait to show you how it turned out!