What is a chicken tractor?

We have three chicken tractors, and I wouldn't be surprised if we have twice that many in a few years.  For the uninitiated, a chicken tractor is a moveable chicken coop/run with everything your chickens need in a small space.  Each morning, I move the tractors to a new patch of lawn, where they scratch for bugs, engulf greenery, and fertilize the ground.  We get free lawnmowing and fertilizing along with better eggs while the chickens get healthy additions to their diet --- it's a win-win.

Animals are an important part of any natural ecosystem, but most modern farming tries to cut them out of the picture.  Chicken tractors put animals back in, but in a controlled manner.  Left to their own devices, free range chickens would make short work of a vegetable garden, eating up your tomatoes and strawberries, scratching your mulch aside, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.  (Yes, I speak from personal experience.)  On the other hand, pen chickens up in a permanent coop/run and they will eat all of the greenery in a matter of days, leaving bare earth which doesn't provide any of their food.

Some folks drag the tractors directly over their garden to fertilize, but I've found this is difficult with raised beds, and also gives the chickens less food.  So we added the mulching lawnmower to our chicken tractor system, allowing us to cut grass fertilized by our chickens, then use the greenery as mulch or compost in the garden.  Thanks, hens!


We invented our homemade chicken waterer specifically for tractors.  Check it out to prevent spilling of water on uneven terrain.