photo by Bill Durako (A's dad)

“It has lots of chickens in it. One chicken is nice, and the other chickens are cool.”  -benjamin larson, 5

“I feed them dandelion leaves through the mesh. They like it!” – Sam Larson, 8

Our chicken tractor is finished. Today, it had its final touches put on in the form of drawings by my nephews and my father. It is plenty spacious for our five hens, and not too hard to move around so they have plenty of fresh grass everyday.

It took longer than expected to make it, but we’re proud of it. We drew up our own plans, and built it all ourselves with hand tools and a power drill. All the wood and paneling involved in building it came from around HQ (a picket fence we took down, wood paneling we’re getting rid of on the back porch, a closet we removed). There are already a few things we’d do differently if we were to start all over again, but nothing desparate.

Now, we wait for eggs.

A chicken tractor, by the way, is a portable chicken coop. It is meant to be moved around every day or two to give the chickens fresh pasture. They eat weed seeds and bugs and leave their rich manure behind.