# Feeding chickens in chicken tractors?



## notasnowballs (Dec 28, 2010)

I know a lot of folks are going to say that you have to supplement feed when keeping chickens in a chicken tractor. My objective, as always, is to be the biggest cheapskate possible, and to know what's in my food. That being said, do you all feed feedstore feed when chicken tractoring, or kitchen scraps, or both, or....? 

Mine have been freerange for almost a year and a half now. They ate totally on their own, even through a pretty good winter and were plenty fat. I think a lot of this was due to that they had free access to dig around under my rabbit cages and eat all those good redworms, in addition to the grass and goodies they dug up everywhere else. I only fed when we had two feet of snow, and then I mixed in fat with birdseed, or fed meat scraps and some kind of sweet grain feed with some corn or sugar, molasses... something to help them burn a little hotter to stay warmer at night. The chickens I butchered were loaded with fat. 

Well now I have to chicken tractor, to save my garden (let me rephrase: To actually HAVE a garden- garden seeds are NOT a chicken buffet, thank you very much!), and because of my slow to learn puppy. The chicken tractor is... 12 feet long by 8 feet wide, something like that? It's just heavy enough that I can't do it by myself very well. Pretty big. Wire frame with a small covered area for nesting boxes on one end. Bucket of water in there. I move it around on tall grass. I've got probably 12-15 birds in there, some of those are a few ducks. I move it everyday. 

I have been throwing a little feed in there, but trying to let them eat all the grass down first. I don't like the arrangement, because I fear they won't get all they need to eat that way, and I don't want to have to start buying feed. It's one more animal I have to feed and water everyday. I'm supposed to work smarter, not harder. 

Do your chickens get enough that way by themselves, or do you supplement? I even played with the idea of grabbing the redworms myself as I dig up dirt, but that was kind of time consuming, too. Yesterday I dropped a coffee can full on the top wire cover, so the worms would crawl downward and drop into the area where the chickens were. They LOVE redworms, but the chickens were kind of dumb and didn't quite get it that this is where the food was coming from. They only got a few of the worms. Fail. 

Ideas? Thoughts?


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## Guest (Apr 19, 2012)

Particularly with a tractor that you are not moving multiple times a day you simply are going to have to give them supplemental feed if you even want to keep them alive much less get any productive use out of them.

I've got eight tractors myself all about nine feet long by eight feet wide (interior width where the birds are) and have been using them since I built the first one five years ago.

Tractoring is NOT the same as free range. The birds simply cannot access enough forage that way. The grass and whatnot adds quality to their eggs but they are not going to be able to perform on that alone. Feed them.


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## sdharlow (Jan 27, 2012)

I have mine tractored as well. 12 Black Australorps. 8 ft x 12 ft like yours. I move it into tall grass, and they are good for about 4 days there. I also have a hanging feeder in there that holds 12 lbs of feed. I only fill it halfway each time, and find that it will last a whole week before I have to put more in. I can live with that. We collect table scraps through the week, and throw that to them on the weekend. So basically I only have to worry about feeding them once a week. At 6 lbs a week a 50 lb bag of feed will last me about 8 weeks. At 20 bucks for 8 weeks of food, I can't complain about that.


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## idigbeets (Sep 3, 2011)

Are ya'll talking about meat or laying birds? My meat birds are in chicken tractors but all get feed as well.


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## sdharlow (Jan 27, 2012)

Mine are dual purpose. Black Australorps.


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## bja105 (Aug 25, 2009)

When mine are in the tractor, I feed them the same as if they were inside. If they eat more forage and less feed, great. I don't count on it to replace feed.
The primary advantages I get from tractors are less manure management and odor, better nutrition, and more space left in the coop.


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