NO MORE Chicken Tractors! How we are raising Broilers without a Chicken Tractor-Free Ranging!!
This is part 1of 2 in this YouTube Series:
In this YouTube Video I talk about how the new we are going to raise our meat chickens. We have tried 3 different types of chicken tractors in the last 2 years of us raising broiler chickens, but the chicken tractors, no matter the size, or style, like the Joel Salatin chicken tractor, they just do not seem to work on our small farm. So after thinking & thinking about it for the past few months, I came up with a new chicken run idea for our meat chickens, that will basically mimic free ranging them.
This new idea of raising them will be very similar to the way we raise our laying hens. So my new meat chicken coop & chicken run idea is this. Make a temporary, or movable chicken coop out of tee post & cattle panels. Bow the panels over to look like a hoop house. The coop will be roughly 10' x 20', & that should plenty of space for 50 broiler chickens. Then I will tie the chicken coop to the T-post & put a tarp over the top of the coop to make it waterproof.
We will put up around 200' of electric poultry netting around the perimeter of their new chicken run area so they can come out of the portable coop & free range & scratch around eating bugs, worms, grass, weeds, seedlings & whatever else they can find & get to act like a chicken. They will get to dust bathe & run around in a huge area, & again it just like a free range chicken. Since our land is so hilly & we have so much wooded area, this new setup just makes sense for our homestead.
See not everyone has acres & acres of flat pasture land, so therefore we can't use the model that most think of using when it comes to raising meat chickens. So it was time for us & our farm to make a change that will work best for us & our farm. And that is all part of farming & homesteading...adapting to what works best for you...always do the best you can with what you have! I hope you enjoyed this video on how we are raising our meat chickens, & hope you stick around for part 2 coming out later this week.
Thank y'all! Jason , the dancing farmer!