Portable chicken coop designs are perfect when you have just a few hens that you want to move around your yard. Also known as chicken tractors, these little coops have a small area for roosting, eating, drinking, laying eggs and foraging. Since the coop is moved every few days to a week, your chickens are getting plenty of grass and bugs to supplement their diet.
You may wonder why you would want a portable chicken coop design. Moving the chickens around keeps them safe and secure while giving them new foraging grounds. They can be moved around the yard to eat bugs, and grass. Their droppings can be used as fertilizers to the soil. You can even place some of them onto garden areas at the end of the season so your chickens can glean any leftover from harvest. They will also fertilize your garden. The droppings will be used to allow your spring garden grow more healthy plants as it decomposes for the next season. You’d be surprised to find out that chickens that are not moved around can reduce an area down to bare earth in less than a week in many cases. Then, it becomes a muddy every time it rains, and your chickens don’t get all that nutritious greenery to eat.
The ark is an example of the chicken coop design that can be portable. This is an A-frame triangular pen, with peak at the top and wide base at the bottom. The ark can be small or big. The only thing that should limit you for size is whether you can move it or not. The ark’s made up of outdoor run and coop. The two-thirds would serve as the outdoor run while the remaining space is for the coop. The coop should hold nest boxes and perches. A small opening lets the chickens out into the run. A bigger door placed on the opposite side of the coop allows you to easily access the coop to collect eggs, feed the chickens or clean the coop. The run also has a door at the end for your easy access. Arks can be moved by attaching long poles so two people can lift and move it, or they can be hooked up to a vehicle and towed.
Another A-frame type portable chicken coop design is a coop that is composed of the top third of the A-frame with the chicken run beneath it. The coop provides shade this way, and the chickens are able to sleep up off the ground in a protected area. Small doors at each end will allow you to clean and gather eggs conveniently. These coops are generally built to house two to four hens and are moved by hand.
Small portable chicken coop designs can also be imaginative. Build a chicken coop that has wheels for easy moving and so it can be moved even with a single person.
PVC and wire can be used to create a run for portable chicken coop. You can even use a dog house as the coop itself with a few modifications to make it easy to access for egg gathering and cleaning.
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