Chicken tractors in the Fall

I wanted to get some pictures of our little caravan of chicken tractors but, I had my daughters camera set on the wrong setting and the pictures turned out all washed out. But, here they are anyway.

These pictures were supposed to illustrate the path the four cages make across the field.

The birds and cages mash down the grass in their wake. The birds forage through the grass eating bugs, worms and such. They eat the grass to. The manure left behind is fantastic for the fertility of the field. The dark green grasses that come up days after the pens have moved ahead are a definite contrast to the grasses that have not had the manure treatment.

We have four cages here and each one is built a little bit differently. That's because I build them with what ever scraps I have on hand.

The square pens are fine except for one bad flaw. They are too tall and strong wind can turn them over, which happened last year when I had two pens blow over tumble weed style in the night and we lost turkeys and chickens to the coyotes. It never happened this year but we did get a wind strong enough to scoot them to the side enough that we lost one young chicken when it got crushed underneath one edge. The Joel Salatin style pens are probably half the height of these pens and I doubt they have the same problem of turning over.

This last picture taken yesterday shows that we are in full Fall colors right now. This is my favorite time of the year. I wish this picture wasn't so washed out so you could see the full brilliance of the colors.