Chicken Intervention

Steve built a chicken tractor to allow us to move the chickens around the yard so they can scratch for bugs and whatever else they scratch for. We do our best to have happy, go-lucky chickens.

The A-frame has a handle on each end to move it. Some tractors have wheels so you can just roll the structure. Steve is still working on the nesting box that will go inside but we’re afraid once we add that, Chicken Little (aka Miss Broody, the one standing on the water bottle) will immediate take up residence, thus defeating our chicken intervention intentions.

We were hoping that a change of scenery might break her broody pattern or at least force her to walk around for awhile and be outdoors. She is throwing all of the chickens off kilter by spending the entire day in the nesting box inside the coop. Spring and summer should be prime egg laying time, with long periods of sunlight and warmth, but the other two chickens are so confused by Chicken Little’s behavior and by her hogging their favorite nesting box (there are two in the coop), we are lucky to get a couple eggs per week.

I’m not sure you can see in the photos, but the hen who has gone broody and spends most of the day inside has a much smaller and paler comb than the other two girls. I have yet to hear of a chicken dying from going broody but it sure doesn’t seem very healthy.

By the way, it’s pretty easy to get the chickens into the A-frame once you catch them in the main chicken run. Getting them back out and into the chicken run is a whole other chicken game. Steve had to lift up the edges of the structure so I could squeeze in far enough to grab and pull out a chicken without having all of them escape at once. The whole process would certainly make a funny video.

I do have a vision in my head of laying a tarp down, moving the A-frame to it. Then picking up the whole thing, tarp, tractor and chickens, and moving it to the chicken run, opening the door, and letting them run in.

Ah yes, this sort of physical activity, trial and error journey, and the laughs that go with it are what keep me young.