I largely used Joel Salatin’s ‘EggMobile’ chicken tractor design. I like having a tractor that is enclosed and can protect the flock at night when most predators strike. Some notable changes to his design:

• Sloped 1:12 roof
• 16′ boat trailer for the base trailer frame instead of welding my own
• Two automatic chicken doors
• Solar powered lights to attract the chickens in at night
• Roll-out nesting boxes that protrude through the walls with ‘perch poppers’ to release the nesting box perch in the early morning.

Many of these changes have to do with decreased labor requirements. I don’t have a staff of interns to button up the doors manually, or clean the nesting boxes each day.

The boat trailer speeded things up, but I did have to purchase angle iron and have a steel working company cut and drill holes so I could anchor it to the frame. Below is a progression of pictures from the build until occupation.