Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (15 page)

The handles at both ends of this shelter make it easy for two people to move it (the handles in the middle are for lifting off the siding to gain access).

The so-called chicken tractor concept uses the same principle as range rotation in a confined shelter, but the shelter is moved around a garden expressly so the chickens will destroy weeds, eat cutworms and other pests, and fertilize the soil. Although active chickens will scratch in the dirt, hence the name chicken tractor, standard broilers and other inactive types tend instead to compact the soil. Like pasture shelters, portable garden shelters must be moved often enough to prevent the chickens from foraging in their own droppings. And in northern areas the birds will need alternative housing that offers protection from rough winter weather.

Portable shelters have become popular because they are less expensive than permanent housing, are not taxed as property improvements in some areas, and may be moved periodically to give chickens healthful ground and fresh forage. To aid in moving them, these shelters come in four basic styles:

With handles, to be moved by hand

On skids, to be moved by hand if light enough; otherwise by a truck, tractor, or draft animal

On wheels without an axle, to be moved by hand; the wheels may be incorporated into the shelter design or on a separate dolly

On wheels with an axle (
chicken mobile home
,
henmobile
, or
eggmobile
), to be moved by a truck, trailer, or draft animal

Whatever design you choose, the shelter must be so easy to move that you’ll move it as often as necessary. A shelter that is movable by one person is more likely to get moved in a timely fashion than one requiring one or more helpers who may not always be around when you need them.

A lightweight shelter that’s movable by hand works fine in a mild climate or for a warm-season poultry project. Such a shelter is inexpensive enough to allow experimentation and revision as needed. The most common construction issue is making it so flimsy it twists apart after a few moves. A basic understanding of structural strength comes in mighty handy in designing one of these shelters. Overbuilding, on the other hand, can make the shelter too heavy or cumbersome to move with ease.

Basic lightweight designs are peaked, boxy, or rounded. Variations include hoops and hexagons. Compared to a flat roof, a rounded or pointed roof sheds more rainwater, and a pointed roof is more comfortable in the hot summer sun. Where winds are strong, the shelter should be low — no more than 4 feet (1.2 m) high — and/or well staked to the ground.

A floorless shelter is cheaper to construct than one with a wire or solid floor. It has the advantage that you can enclose the chickens entirely within, and they’ll
have access to pasture or garden soil without being exposed to flying predators. Take care to block ground-level dips that provide access to four-legged predators and rainwater with this sort of shelter, and be sure to move it often to keep the chickens off built-up droppings.

A 6- by 10-foot (1.8 by 3 m) shelter, moved daily, may be used to raise up to three dozen broilers; a 4- by 8-foot (1.2 by 2.5 m) camper-shell size will handle about 15. By attaching nest boxes to the outside (where they don’t take up interior space), you could enclose about the same number of laying hens.

A shelter with a solid floor is more rigid and offers greater protection from ground predators, provided you close the door each night. Because the birds have no access to pasture inside the shelter, they’ll need to run loose during the day. They may be confined to a pasture area in one of two ways — use a portable fence that moves with the shelter, or let the chickens range within a permanently fenced pasture. Either way, you’ll need to move the shelter at least once a week to avoid killing the pasture beneath it; the plants underneath will start to yellow but should recover in about a month. In contrast to a floorless shelter, which acquires a clean “floor” every time it’s moved to new ground, a floored shelter requires bedding that must be periodically refreshed or cleaned out and replaced, increasing the labor involved.

A wire floor lets droppings fall through, solving the issue of cleaning a solid floor, while providing more predator protection than no floor. But wire should not be used to house heavy breeds, as it’s hard on their feet.

For a harsh climate a shelter on skids, or on an axle or two, may be built sturdier than a lightweight hand-moved shelter and may be insulated more easily. A single-axle shelter needs a dolly wheel or jack at the front to level the thing while it’s in place, and any shelter with wheels must be braked, blocked, or tethered to prevent rolling. A shelter built on an axle has a floor and may be moved easily early in the morning or late in the evening when the chickens are inside.

A shelter on skids may be constructed with or without a floor. A floorless shelter would have a gap at the front and back, between the skids, that leaves the structure wide open to predators. If the front and back walls are brought down to ground level to close off these gaps, they will scrape the ground during a move. Instead, close off the gaps with hinged boards at the front and back that can be lifted during a move.

This portable shelter on skids offers all the comforts of a permanently fixed shelter.

A lightweight camper shell affixed to a plywood corral may be insulated against cold weather and built on skids for easy moving.