My family lives in Tennessee and we use chicken tractors for all of our hens and roosters. We have no meat birds at the moment, except for a couple turkeys, so our layers are controlled grazers as well. We love the system and it has been working great for us. We only have around 50 birds, but since we have only been homesteading for 4 months I think that works out well. Thanks for the video, I love what you're doing.
John Suscovich from Farm Marketing Solutions also has a good Chicken tractor model. You can walk into it which I always think could be useful. Maybe if you run out of room and have to build another you could try a different kind and see which one you like better. I'm not criticizing though, your setup looks great and your birds look happy and healthy.
Please let us know that you and your family are ok! I have just seen on the news that there has been a bad car attack in Sweden. I am praying for you county and the people there. God bless you
Thanks so much mate all the way from Australia I’m about to incubate for the 1st time ever for my bosses farm love in def you go in videos I’m sitting here with note pad thanks again mate helping people feed their family all way in Australia
That's a cool system, and the animals are obviously happy. I have always believed in the controlled grazing concept since free range birds tend to deplete the grass too fast by scratching.
Love your videos. The memories flood back. I was in charge of the complete care of the chickens where I grew up. Including chasing them all back to their huge coop every night and shut the door. They were free range chickens, Nebraska farms are not surrounded by forest. We still had badgers, fox, skunks and coyotes that tried to dig in at night. Dad would let them out when he got up to milk cows. Am curious how you handle things when "the time comes"? I don't think your you tube friends could understand about what it means to live on a 90% self sustaining farm. Thanks for your videos.
I love your videos! Thank you so much for posting them. Are there no predators that could tear the chicken wire in the roofs of your tractors? Here in the USA we have large populations of raccoons that can shred that wire in less than a minute. I have to use hardware cloth like you have on the sides of some of the tractors everywhere, including the tops. I'd be interested in hearing what kinds of (chicken) predators you have in your area. Here in Western Washington, I have bear, mountain lion, bobcat (which took several of my birds last year), hawk, dog, coyote (though I have never lost a single bird to coyotes in 21 years), raccoon, rats (not here) and probably others I don't know about. Do you follow Joe Salatin's pasture rotation with different species? I think he first runs cattle, maybe sheep, then chickens to break up the manure from the larger animals; this brakes the parasite cycles, and provides other benefits. I'd be interested in seeing more about the plants that grow in you pastures. I have read Newman Turner's books on herbal pasture leys. My favorite is Fertility Pastures. I would also love to see some recipes your family enjoys. I imagine you have a wonderful diet using the harvest from the land and combining German, Swedish and American recipes.
I prefer free ranging with several sectors ...1 sector per day in a rotation with one main coop. This allows the manure to dry out, allowing you to water each sector providing the plants to recover and utilize the manure. Pros and cons to all setups though, thanks for sharing.
The concentrated area for the chickens to graze keeps the chickens from just eating their favorite plants and will compel them to eat a variety of what the pasture offers....better for the chickens and better for the pasture.
Rat Route better for the pasture perhaps. Typically animals favor the foods that are best for them (except when humans artificially provide food they would not have access too in nature, like huge quantities of grain in the case of the ruminant animals)
cheesecloth screen over the bucket, tied on with a string, no bugs, no mosquito larva, sunlight still gets in to keep bacteria at bay and you can refill bucket pouring through the screen
I am surprised you are only at around 37,000 subs, as this is such a great channel. Your content is so in depth and entertaining to watch. So anyone reading this, if you haven't subscribed. Subscribe to this channel, it deserves it!
Get some fine gravel down at the lake make a small clearing in their pens and it will help their gizzards work better . They will scratch and they know just what size and how much to scratch and it is much better for their digestive system thus richer eggs. Give it a try I think you'll be surprised !
Simeon, we are breeding Black Australorps and doing something similar to what you do (i.e. keeping the hens for eggs and the males for meat). However, we are not butchering the males until they are about 16-20 weeks. That adds up in feed cost and, even though we believe that the meat is much tastier than the Cornish Cross broilers we also pasture raise and process in only 8-9 weeks, it is difficult for us to market those birds. What is your market like? In your experience, is it cost efficient to raise meat birds for more than 12 weeks? (I believe you mention that you process at about 14 weeks). Thanks for your videos. Very informative.
Do you market yours OFF GRID with DOUG and STACY? Free ranging is certainly a cheap way to raise them. It takes longer to bring them to butchering size, though, and the meat gets tougher the older they are, thus the more difficult it is to market them. (BTW: we are big fans of your channel). Blessings
Trodde inte de skulle va intressant med detta, men nu vill man bara se nästa klipp bla på hur jorden blir efter en dag. Du gör ett bra jobb👍 väldigt kul att följa verkligen:)
Great job with the B roll footage while you explain about pastured poultry. I get tired of people just talking at a camera and not showing us what they are talking about.
Thanks for all that info Simeon! I’d you to make a video about your Bresse used as meat birds. I keep the same breed and right now I have tooooo many roosters. I’ve been thinking about processing them. Have you ever thought about caponization? Thanks again!
totally disagree with your statement @9:28 or so. Our birds open range and go all over the place. They never go to the exact same place. Also if you are trying to "mimic" nature open range would be the only logical choice. We also have hawks,Eagles, coyotes, skunks, foxes, raccoons and have never lost 1 chicken. The other thing to consider is the work it takes to move the tractor over and over .... gets to be a chore and as you age becomes more difficult. Not knocking what you are doing because that is what makes the human experiment so grand, we all are different =)
Moving chicken tractors is easy if you use a real tractor. Guess you don't have mink or weasels. If I let my chickens free range there would be no chickens inside 2 weeks. I use fairly large fenced off areas all around the coops so I can rotate their grazing areas using doors on timers. Works good.
free-range chickens....feed the wildlife, not the people. This looks like a fantastic way to accomplish your goals! I am guessing you have wire flooring in the tractors...and that would keep ground-digging predators out too?
Free range would also mean allowing predators some free range. We have too many hawks and coyotes to let chickens 'free range' in my area else there'd be some missing chickens.
Thanks for the video! I'll be be building one or two tractors this year, so this video was helpful. I would like more info on the waterers though. Also, do you do any feed for them, or do they just graze? Thanks again, take care!
Besides fox, mink and hawks, what other predators do you have to contend with? Can we get an update on the hogs rooting your ground, showing how efficient they are?
I believe I asked once but got no reply. Are you allowed to caponize/poulardize chickens in Sweden? On another note, I have acquired a small number of reasonably sound American Bresse pullets and I have a plan to improve them. I would like to explain my plan (already in practice) but I'm not willing to discuss my project on your vid. Do you have a 'throw-away' e-mail address? I would appreciate hearing your opinion.
5 Year Plan unless you know for a fact that you have an abundance of gritty soil and made sure to mow/graze very short, tractor chickens need Grit provided to them
2:55 the reason buckets are black is because algae cant grow in them, i have 3 whitebuckets where i put the water for my dogs and i have to clean them constantly hahah, (just laziness from me because i know how to fix it, just get some black buckets)also if you have overheating problems with those you could fold them with aluminium foil to reflect the heat, 3 tight pases with the foils should be enought to make it sturdy enough to make it last for at least 1 or 2 years
BIG JOHN Hi John, moving a chicken tractor is very easy with an ATV, riding mower, tractor, etc. Check out "Joel Salatin's Chicken Tractor", or "Joel Salatin talks pastured chickens". Good luck!
BIG JOHN by not using any machinery to move it. These are moved with a wheeled dolly inserted under one side, then pulked by hand from the side opposite the dolly. A human doesn't pull this faster than chickens walk
You missed one of the main reasons for using a chicken tractor for meat birds is limiting movement activity. A chicken tractor is great for getting meat birds on pasture and still limiting their movement and activity. The more movement and activity a bird has over its lifetime, the more feed it needs to gain weight and the tougher the meat. The chicken tractor strikes a good balance between cage based captivity and free range for meat birds. You do not want to free range meat birds.
I don't have a problem with the meat being slightly tougher, because it's tastier and has better nutrition. Besides, toughness of the meat comes more with age than exercise. On the other hand, smart and caring growers who don't free range can certainly establish a good balance between diet and exercise and safety of the animals, producing a maximized output of very healthy birds.
