Moving the Chicks Onto Grass
This week, my focus was primarily on the new chicks that we are getting ready to integrate into our egg mobile. They were starting to get a little too big for the brooder, and it was time to get them out onto pasture. The chicks are being hardened off and gradually introduced to the pasture system before joining the egg mobile. I kicked around a couple of ideas for a chicken tractor, but the design shown in the picture here and below is about as simple as it gets. You can find versions of this design on all kinds of farming and homesteading websites. It is basically a rectangular box with a lid on top, enclosed with quarter-inch hardware cloth. One thing I did differently was leave about an inch and a half of excess hardware cloth along the bottom edge. That allows me to push it down against the ground to help discourage snakes or other small predators from getting underneath. I could have made the tractor a little bigger, but I wanted to keep it practical. The finished size is ab...
