The Chicken Tractor and a Finished Coop

It has been almost 4 weeks for the chickens in their new home.  The good news is that they love it, the bad news is that the ground under the coop is starting to stink.  I really should have moved the coop at least a week ago to prevent the ground from getting so smelly.  On top of that it thunder-stormed for about 36 hours straight the past 2 days so that the backyard is a swamp.

All of this means is that today had to be the day that the coop needed to be moved.  We decided to move it to the rear of the yard. I guess that's about 30 yards away from its current location.  I went to the hardware store and bought some heavy duty chain to hook up to the sides of the coop and then to the back of the John Deer Tractor (lawn tractor that is, model L100, the smallest one).  It was time to see if the "Sleigh" method on the bottom of the coop would work, I was crossing my fingers.

Well,  once hooked up to the coop, the tractor had little traction in the rain soaked yard, so Missy pushed the coop from behind as I drove the tractor.  We had to do a lot of reversing then forward to jam the coop out of the ruts.  Finally I devised a plan to place PVC tubes under the coop so that it could "roll" across the yard.  This worked, and made towing the coop much easier.

Oh, did I forget to mention that I locked all of the Chickens up in the shelter during the big move.  They seemed to be okay with all the jerking around, no injuries and no super loud squawking 

Once finished I replaced the food, water, opened the shelter door, and then replaced the ramp.  The chickens were very happy, probably because the were no longer be jerked around in that shelter, and enjoyed pecking around the fresh grass.

My next problem was cleaning up all of the poop from where the coop was.  I took a shovel and just scooped it all up then placed it into a trash can for composting.  The ground was so wet from the rain that I ended scooping up about half poop and half true dirt, oh well.  I learned my lesson and will move the coop more often now.  Plus next time I'll move it when the yard is not a complete marsh from rain.

Last but not least, I finished painting the coop!  I finally took the time to paint the trim white, see the pictures below.

Tune in next time for some wild chicken antics!

Oh, one last thing.  No eggs yet, I don't expect any until fall.

This picture shows the distance traveled in the move.  Notice the dirt patch on the bottom right and the coop on the middle left side of the picture.

This picture shows the ground after I scooped up all the poop.  I hope it will make good fertilizer after it "cooks".  Notice the trail the coop left as it traveled through the rain soaked grass.  The coop is in the upper right part of the picture behind a the oak tree.

Another picture showing the trail.  The pictures really do not show how wet the yard really is from the rainfall. Every step you take you sink about an inch and a half!

The ultimate "Chicken Tractor".

Close up showing the chain hooked up to the coop and the tractor.  I wasn't sure, but that little John Deer really hauled the load (with Missy's help of course).

View showing the rollers we used to help the coop move through the rain soaked yard.

And Finally, the fully painted coop!

Let me know what you think.