One of the best parts of my job is trying out various agricultural techniques to see how they will work here in our tropical lowland climate. My latest experiment involves a device called a chicken tractor. Chicken tractors are small, easily moved, bottomless chicken pens. Each day the pen and chickens are moved to a new area, allowing them to fertilize the ground, eat bugs and generally enjoy a healthier life due to the fresh grass under their feet. My hope in this experiment was that I could successfully raise fryers for sale to the local community. Fryers are a fast growing chicken, specifically bred to gain weight quickly. A fryer can reach market weight, about 5 pounds, in as little as 6-7 weeks. Coming into this experiment I was concerned about several things. Would the pens protect the birds from predators; possum, skunk, snakes, dogs, et al? Would I be able to adequately shield them from the heat? Would I be able to raise them free from antibiotics and hormones and still get the feed conversion ratios needed to be profitable? Well next week we will butcher our first batch of 30 birds. They are progressing towards the 4-5 pound goal very well, with many of the males well over 4 pounds already. I have had no problems with predators and, even on some pretty warm days, the birds did fine. We haven't had one sick bird and all of the birds have been pre-sold. All in all better than hoped for results. Best of all, there has been great interest among local folks in building there own chicken tractors. God willing, we will expand our flock over the next few months. I am hoping to be able to produce and sell 120 birds every 2 weeks. This project if successful will provide one half time job caring of the birds and 1 day of work twice monthly for 3 women butchering and cleaning.
All in all, everyone's a winner. (except the birds)
Organic and free range birds. You can sell them for a higher price now since they have the freedom to move around. Send them to Bend and I'll buy a dozen from you.
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"Better-than-hoped-for results" is getting to be a norm for you (which means you won't be able to describe results that way much longer, might go with "just as I expected from my God of Wonders!".) I love the name "chicken tractors". Thanks for sharing.
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ReplyDeleteI want a detailed plan and cost list!!! (Can you tell I'm wanting to copy your idea??) We were thinking of doing the 'coffin' version but I like the looks of this one better. And you know me and looks....
In what areas are you using them??
Really, this is BEYOND awesome!! God is good.
Wow, glad this is working for you. Someday when I have chickens (which will also probably be when I am in HN) I hope to be able to rotate them between my gardens in some fashion, maybe something similar to this? I love to hear stuff like this, because I so commonly hear "that's not the way it's done in HN, the people won't change." This is a good example of how a good/ecological idea can be successful and how others can be interested because they see the results!
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