Paca Pride

http://pacapride.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/chicken-tractorpasture-renovation-and-bug-control/

We just posted our new 2011 chicken tractor run on our blog and included a You Tube video clip too for those who are interested in running chickens and turkeys this way...

I've uploaded a couple of pics on the "Raising Cornish Rock cross" thread of the Chicken tractor... if you want to see what it looks like...

Indeed, two meat ducks were the new thing to try during this past year's run.
They did equally as well, requiring the addition of a small pool of water to cavort in.
I probably won't do ducks again, didn't get enough meat from either of them.

This year's run will be all Cornish Rock Cross (15-20) with 3-4 turkeys; seems the most successful.

Funny, though, the main priority for even doing the tractor was not to raise meat but to help establish the pastures and the cycle of tilth and control biting fly populations.  We took 17 acres of land that had been logged in 1998 and had 10 years of growth over the logging slash and turned it into a homestead staring 2005.  The pastures established in 2006 and here in 2011,  still consider them establishing.  The main battle is moss control which in some areas I use Iron sulfate to kill before seeding.  But with the tractor I can drag it over very mossy spots and let the birds tear it up, then cover with waste hay or straw from the herd's feeders and seed.  The straw mulch seems to do the trick of adding cover and enough sequestered carbon to get grasses and clover established. 

So, getting meat was actually a by-product, a welcome one at that, of our system for fertilizing the pastures and controlling bugs!

I've had good success with raising ours in the chicken tractor with turkeys.
My tractor is 4'x12' on skids made from carport parts. 
It follows the llama and alpaca herd and is pulled over the poop piles to rack out and eat bugs.  I can move it within a single pasture if I'm doing a renovation followed by seeding, but it usually ends up having a run in each of the pastures during the season.

I usually raise 15-20 meat birds with 3-4 turkeys in this space.
Once they are past brooding, they are allowed outside the tractor during the day and locked up back at night.  I give use free choice feed during brooding along with the patch of ground they are on with some waste hay or straw.  After brooding, they forage during the day and are go back in at the end of the day with some feed tossed in trays. 
The tractor moves every few days from one spot.  I try to target mossy spots and poop piles with the tractor within a pasture area.  They then go to the next pasture a month or so later and do the same rotation through that area. 

I do reduce feed quite a bit when they are fully foraging. This has worked out well.  A general rule I use is examining their crop. If I can observe them during the day, before feeding time (to get them into the tractor) I can get a sense of their ability to forage. I look for a bulge you can see when standing near them. If you can grab them in the tractor you can also feel how full their crop is as well. I found it good indication that they were getting enough.  As they are growing I give them enough feed to make their crops slightly bulge at the end of the night once they've receive some feed. With great forage, there is little need for a lot of feed. By learning to ration feed to the birds as they need it, I have noticed the birds are healthier and also have less fat accumulation.   

I start my run in Mid-May and then begin to process chickens in Sept-Oct, 2-3 at a time, 1-2 times a week.  By the end the turkeys are the only ones left.  They stay rotating in the pastures until I pull the herd off for the season. I usually then move the tractor up to the front "sacrifice" winter paddocks, with the herd near the barn, and use a deep bedding approach for the rest of the turkey run. I harvest turkeys starting in November and finish in December as needed for holiday meals with the remaining ones used for ground turkey.  In the spring I move the tractor back out to pasture to prepare for the next run and rake the bedding into the paddock to become a garden paddock (this year we are trying wheat and onions).

We also have a fixed coop for 26 egg layers and they free range. We do have to fence them out of the garden paddocks once we start planting them, but some 5' fencing does the trick.  For certain portions where we are germinating in the Spring, the flock stays cooped up for a few weeks and is brought extra greens and a tray of compost with worms and bugs to scratch through.  The floor of the coop is fencing with catch trays that slide out to be emptied every 2-3 months.

WWW.PacaPride.com is us...
WE use a chicken tractor and a coop.
Our coop has catch trays for the poop and houses 26 egg layers and a rooster.
I empty the trays (made from a recycled luggage/cargo car topper) about once every 2-3 MONTHS.  The floor of the coop is fencing, so everything falls into the trays.  I sprinkle ag lime during the summer to neutralize the poop and wood ashes from our wood stove during the winter.  I use diatomaceous earth as well.  I also use ag lime to disinfect the coop by dusting the inside of the coop with it, or once a year making a whitewash of ag lime and water and using a sprayer.  (Ag lime is the stuff you can touch and not get burned, and eliminates the smell of the poop, plus it is a nice soil amendment)  I empty the poop trays into the compost bin where the herd's poop gets collected.

Our chicken tractor is used from May through Oct/Nov/Dec for a run of 20 meat chickens and 3-4 turkeys.  Made from salvaged parts of course, on metal pole skids.  I drag it into the pasture that the herd of llamas/alpacas grazed and during the day let the birds out to forage and lock them up at night.  I use commercial feed for them when brooding the chicks, but once they can forage, I only use a small amount of feed, as a treat, to get them all back in the tractor at night.  I'll even drag the bottomless tractor over the llama poop pile for them to scratch at and spread.  My biting fly population disappeared! 

I start processing chickens in Sept 2-3 at a time and the turkeys in November.  I do have to re-introduce feed to the turkeys as forage is lower by November and I usually park the chicken tractor back up in a 'sacrifice' paddock around the barn where I use straw as some deep bedding for the remainder of the run which gets spread into that paddock in the Spring, becoming a garden paddock. (Wheat getting planted there this year for bread flour)

My primary reason for using a chicken tractor was not to raise meat, but to fertilize the pastures and control insect populations