Quote:
Careful about using a tractor like this to house your chickens at night, especially if you know you have dogs and coyotes to deal with. First of all, a tractor is vulnerable to digging under the edge unless you attach a wire apron or skirt and tack it down temporarily with blocks or something like that. Secondly, if the wire openings are larger than 1/2" by 1/2" you have the problem of critters like raccoons reaching in to grab your birds and pull pieces of them out through the wire.
If the tractor is made from PVC, you do have to make sure it's not so light that a couple of dogs could knock it over to get at the chickens inside.
Even though our yard has a six foot solid board fence (so we don't have to contend with roaming neighborhood dogs), I only use our tractors for the daytime. At night, when predator risk is higher, I lock my chickens inside a stout, solid walled coop.
The other problem with a tractor for nighttime use is that there really is no place for the chickens to roost at any appreciable height (unless it's a really tall tractor). Unless you have heavy breeds or Silkies that wouldn't roost high even if they could, I suspect it's stressful to force adult chickens to roost down low at only 2 feet high or so at night.
Careful about using a tractor like this to house your chickens at night, especially if you know you have dogs and coyotes to deal with. First of all, a tractor is vulnerable to digging under the edge unless you attach a wire apron or skirt and tack it down temporarily with blocks or something like that. Secondly, if the wire openings are larger than 1/2" by 1/2" you have the problem of critters like raccoons reaching in to grab your birds and pull pieces of them out through the wire.
If the tractor is made from PVC, you do have to make sure it's not so light that a couple of dogs could knock it over to get at the chickens inside.
Even though our yard has a six foot solid board fence (so we don't have to contend with roaming neighborhood dogs), I only use our tractors for the daytime. At night, when predator risk is higher, I lock my chickens inside a stout, solid walled coop.
The other problem with a tractor for nighttime use is that there really is no place for the chickens to roost at any appreciable height (unless it's a really tall tractor). Unless you have heavy breeds or Silkies that wouldn't roost high even if they could, I suspect it's stressful to force adult chickens to roost down low at only 2 feet high or so at night.