Did Andrew W. Lee Invent the Chicken Tractor?

Hello to you!

The oldest book about the chicken tractor that I can find is Chicken tractor: the gardener's guide to happy hens and healthy soil by Andrew W. Lee published in 1994 by Good Earth Publications, Shelburne, VT.

Is he the inventor or were there chicken tractors before that?

Thank you,
Ambie

The name chicken tractor seems to be quite new.  That's about the time I first came across it.  But this way of keeping chickens has been around for quite a while in communities where it's not a good idea to let chickens run free.   Like most of permaculture, we put new words and packaging on traditional techniques as a way of 'selling' ideas to the modern world.  

I've heard stories of people in Endland in the late 1800s using wattle hurdles to move chickens around or weaving basket runs.  the more wealthy people used wire fencing.  This is more oral history.  There's not a lot of writing about it because it was normal - like how we don't have much writing these days on how best to use toilet paper or put on shoes.

I haven't read it in a while but memory suggests there is something in Henry Stephen's Book of the Farm - or something else written about that time, but it wasn't called 'tractor'.  

Andrew definitely did not invent that technique.

In the 1950s, my daddy slept with the turkeys. They roosted in mobile coops that were periodically dragged across the fields to bring them to new forage. Daddy watched them from dusk till dawn to protect them from predators and thieves.  

This might be the first post on the forum about chicken tractors:

https://permies.com/t/1958/chicken-coops-runs-tractors-paddocks

And for those that are interested in the book by Andy Lee and Pat Foreman:

https://permies.com/wiki/48638/Chicken-tractor-permaculture-guide-happy

Mobile coops date farther back.  Read about it in a farm book from about 1800-1850 time frame I think.(don't remember the publication dates but it was old and the book was cracking into powder)  So it goes back at least that far.  But since I doubt the word tractor goes back that far the terminology may be new.

There is a lot of confusion around the term "chicken tractor".

As was already mentioned, portable floorless poultry pens were used for many years before this term came into use.

Andy Lee and Pat Foreman wrote the book called "Chicken Tractor" to advocate using a floorless pen in a garden to allow chickens to do tillage--instead of using a tractor. That's why they called it a chicken "tractor". That usage is the only way the term makes sense. It's not a tractor when used in backyards or pastures. Joel Salatin's term, pasture poultry pen, would fit better in such a case.

A tractor is technically a machine that pulls, using traction.

So, pasture poultry shelters have been around for years, but Andy Lee and Pat Foreman wrote the book to promote use of these pens in gardens. It seems somehow, the wrong term got attached to pasture poultry pens in general.

This discussion made me think of the Rolling Hen Orb... or the chicken hamster ball :)

I don't know how practical they would be if you have more than a few chickens... but it lets them get around in some level of safety.

https://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Hen-Orb-Cage-Predator-Proof/dp/B07X8VDTXM?keywords=chicken+coop+rake&qid=1708092851&sr=8-3-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=sorendrimer03-20&linkId=61365eab3962e5d902b67f3f67efe3a8&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Matt McSpadden wrote:This discussion made me think of the Rolling Hen Orb... or the chicken hamster ball :)  

Oh, my! Please don't! The picture of the hen with a fox beside it! Chickens can die of fright, assuming the fox doesn't just pick the ball and bite right through it.

Our Eagles would certainly be tempted to at least try to carry the ball off.

Jay Angler wrote:

Matt McSpadden wrote:This discussion made me think of the Rolling Hen Orb... or the chicken hamster ball :)  

Oh, my! Please don't! The picture of the hen with a fox beside it! Chickens can die of fright, assuming the fox doesn't just pick the ball and bite right through it.

Our Eagles would certainly be tempted to at least try to carry the ball off.

And, this whole concept assumes level ground. In one of those things, it would take only a rock out of place, and the chicken could be trapped in a puddle, unable to move, or (especially on land like ours) could end up rolling down a hills, out of control, trapped in the sun, with no relief, or with injuries from their toes or beak getting trapped.

Jay Angler wrote:
Oh, my! Please don't! The picture of the hen with a fox beside it! Chickens can die of fright, assuming the fox doesn't just pick the ball and bite right through it.

Our Eagles would certainly be tempted to at least try to carry the ball off.

Carla Burke wrote:
And, this whole concept assumes level ground. In one of those things, it would take only a rock out of place, and the chicken could be trapped in a puddle, unable to move, or (especially on land like ours) could end up rolling down a hills, out of control, trapped in the sun, with no relief, or with injuries from their toes or beak getting trapped.

Lol. I yield :)

So if its flat ground with grass, and no serious predators, it could work :) I think I'll just stick to my electronet.

Somewhere, lurking in the heaps of chaos, is a photo of a chicken tractor that my late husband made in the 1970s.

He didn't call them by that of course, but that's what they were. He used to move it around and clear ground with it whilst keeping the chickens safe and fed. He used to make them to sell to other people too. I'll find the photo and share it one day - small, faded, home processed black-and-white one...