The "Hen Hotel": a moveable coop for 50 birds 🐔

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asked me to share this with you all, so here ya go! This is one of the projects my husband and kids have been up to lately: a high-security moveable chicken coop ("chicken tractor") for our new laying flock of roughly 50 birds.

The roosts inside are saplings from our woods.

The doors latch with hard-for-coons-to-figure-out methods and hardware cloth covers the open spaces.

There are 12 nest boxes that jut out from one side, big doors open on both ends and a ramp-door with climbing slats opens in the front.

It has pneumatic tires (2 of which swivel, so you can move it in all directions), and 2x4 moving "handles" come out from each end so a couple strong young people can move it around the pasture. If it's super muddy/wet ground, they can lay a couple pieces of plywood down and let it rest on them so the wheels don't sink.

The bottom is also hardware cloth, so some droppings can fall through and it can be easily sprayed out with a hose to clean it, won't tear up the ground underneath, and the raised design provides hawk protection for the birds to scurry under during the day (iykyk).

It is surrounded by a double length of electric net fence, powered by a solar fence charger, to keep birdies in and predators out.

As much of it as possible is repurposed materials from other projects to help keep costs down.

So far, the chickens love it, and it's been very easy to work with.

Pictures are below. Not great, but they'll give you an idea.

What do you think?

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