Need help predator proofing chicken tractor.

[Country chicken lady 2024]

I have a few questions.

I have built this cattle panel chicken tractor for the meat chickens and will be the layers run when meat is done. Finishing up on it today. It’s 3 cattle panels, 2x4 (6 and 12foot long, so decently heavy). The front 2/3 is 1/4 hardwire and the back portion (which will be under a tarp) will be chicken wire since I will be running out of hardwire cloth. It’s 12x6. It has wheels I will put on every time I move it, so there shouldn’t be too many gaps between it and the ground normally, land is mildly uneven and sloped at some points.

The chickens will rotate in my front yard-not fenced (the white fencing in front is just decoration, nothing substantial) and be moved 1-2x a day since those birds are poop monsters.
My tiny back yard butts up to the woods with coyotes, armadillos, raccoons, possums, snakes, occasional bobcat, you name it. I don’t have any guard animals, and guard birds would make my neighbors angry with the noise they make. My back yard isn’t big enough for the tractor, barely big enough for my garden I have in it currently, so the front is all I have (less than 1 acre, I’ve attached pics of the landscape). I will also be using electric poultry netting around the tractor to add as another layer of protection.

So my questions are, since I’ve never made a chicken tractor:
1. Is painting the wood and hardwire/chickenwire black help make it harder for predators to delineate where the best spot to dig under is? Like do they so clearly see the chickens that they can’t tell where to actually start digging under? Or is it best to keep everything natural?
2. With the pest pressure( why I went with hardwire-hard for claws to grab and snakes to go through) would it be better to have hardwire flaps on the outside of the coop to deter predators, or to make a hardwire bottom that the tractor gets put on at night and attached to the bottom 2x4 to prevent predators from digging/sliding(snakes) in?
Or is there another nightly barrier I could use/make to slide the tractor over?
I almost feel like because we do have snakes out here, that a full nightly bottom would be best? The layers will have a coop they go in a night, so not worried for them, but worried for the meat chickens.

Thank you!

 

[sourland]

I'd suggest the use of hotwire around the perimeter.

 

[Penpal]

Your best thing is the electric fencing. They touch their nose to it for a sniff and get zapped. There is enough space within the confines of the poultry fencing to be able to move your hoop coop around and not have move the fencing as often as you move the coop.

Weasels can get through the netting, and will be able to get into the hoop coop. If you have a problem with weasels I think your best plan would be poison. I know everyone hates this, but weasels can decimate your chickens. You have to kill them. If you don't want to use poison, a bucket water trap may take care of them.

 

[Rose Quartz]

I can tell you from my different attempts at chicken tractors that a permanent wire floor which was set directly onto the ground caused massive bumble foot issues.

I dont have as many predators as you, but with no wire floor and moving the tractor every 2 - 3 days i never had anything dig in.

I have coyotes and racoon here. I have had racoons reach in and grab wings and legs through my wire walls though, i would suggest the lower 18" be hardwire and not chicken wire to keep that from happening.

 

[Country chicken lady 2024]

I can tell you from my different attempts at chicken tractors that a permanent wire floor which was set directly onto the ground caused massive bumble foot issues.

I dont have as many predators as you, but with no wire floor and moving the tractor every 2 - 3 days i never had anything dig in.

I have coyotes and racoon here. I have had racoons reach in and grab wings and legs through my wire walls though, i would suggest the lower 18" be hardwire and not chicken wire to keep that from happening.

Okay, so maybe I just do some hardwire flaps on the outside? Along with electric netting?
Guess my only other concern would be weasels or rats passing through the netting and digging under the tractor.

I was worried about sores and bumble foot.

 

[Country chicken lady 2024]

Your best thing is the electric fencing. They touch their nose to it for a sniff and get zapped. There is enough space within the confines of the poultry fencing to be able to move your hoop coop around and not have move the fencing as often as you move the coop.

Weasels can get through the netting, and will be able to get into the hoop coop. If you have a problem with weasels I think your best plan would be poison. I know everyone hates this, but weasels can decimate your chickens. You have to kill them. If you don't want to use poison, a bucket water trap may take care of them.

What poison do you recommend that wouldn’t harm chickens?

 

[Penpal]

Your birds will be in the hoop coop, you would put the poison outside of the hoop coop. If you know the trail they take, put it on their trail. I have used Fly Bait, there are two different brands, get what you can. You put 1/2 teaspoon of Fly Bait in a saucer and add a 1/4 cup of milk. They like it. They will run off because they have been fed. They will fall asleep.

 

[rosemarythyme]

1. Is painting the wood and hardwire/chickenwire black help make it harder for predators to delineate where the best spot to dig under is? Like do they so clearly see the chickens that they can’t tell where to actually start digging under? Or is it best to keep everything natural?

I don't think it'll make a difference. Paint it black if you prefer it visually, but many predators and pests don't rely on their eyesight as their primary mode of finding prey or ways to get at it.

 

[paintedChix]

I think that going w/ both the apron & hot wire, as already described, may be best.

Having unburied wire under the tractor, either attached or as a nightly docking station, may cause issues as already described. I've thought about it myself, but my yard & pastures aren't as evenly grassed, meaning then the tractor wouldn't move or sit right. Just doing the aprons are sometimes difficult.

Personally, if you're making a docking station, I'd leave it there permanently & bed the "run" ( I use DLM"). Especially for messy meat birds - wouldn't take but a few "docked nights" to muck it up... Also, your tractor is large/long. You may find it gets quite "old" moving it daily, much less several times daily.

As to painting - it would protect the lumber (I don't know about the wire) and adds eye appeal. Since it's in your front yard, that's up to you.