I first heard about a chicken tractor from one of my American magazines ten years ago or so. It was a review of a book a homesteader had written about using chickens to till and fertilise the land. I wanted one. And now (finally!!) I have a chicken tractor with four happy hens installed in my garden.

It is all thanks to Keith who hammered and sawed the thing together (with a tiny bit of ‘hold this’ and ‘pull that’ help from me) We decided to make it using as much recycled material as possible.

This is the wood from an old fence that we took down a few years ago. It was more difficult to work with than purchased wood as it is quite uneven, making it harder to fit all the bits together.

After looking at plenty of designs we decided on an A Frame with the shelter on one side at the top of the A. This would maximise the amount of ground space the chooks would have.