Run a wire over a few inches above the feeder thru the center of a length of 1/2" PVC. This acts as a carrying reel to prevent perching above the food. Not an issue with meat birds, but needed for eggers and duals.
For the back part with the wheels lifting the thing off the ground, you could probably put some sort of rubber door sweep/draft stopper along the back wall
Hardware cloth on the lower sides does matter re predators in my experience. I appreciated your comparison of two types. I have locked myself in my chicken tractor before. Lol. I have a string inside now that will lift the latch!!
Yeah..I changed my permanent coop hardware to a heavy duty, lockable latch that is impossible to get locked in..after locking myself in and crawling out the chicken door. Now my auto door is too small to do that, so, had to change. My girls are growing so fast, almost two weeks old now, might add heat to the coop and get them out after four or five weeks. Really enjoy having them inside, getting to know them.
Subbed and liked. I plan on building one of these early next year and having a go a chickens. At work we use long lengths of 1x8 Teflon boards. Thinking of taking a few cutoff pieces to put at the front corners of the pen. Should make it that much easier to move
I'm getting ready to try out raising my own meat birds and I've been back and forth on what tractor I wanted to build. We've always raised laying hens with a permanent coop and due to building space I wanted to go mobile for the meat birds. Your video made my mind up for me, think I might use a different door latch though, LOL. Thank you.
First time looking at these I can see the advantages for the smaller homestead, Salatin's hold 75 birds and doesn't recommend going in both work I Nice Job framing it with the full dimension lumber
I’ve been using John’s design for years! I swear by these chicken tractors. I live in the Sierras of Kommifornia. But with our hilly property. I start at the top of a hill and go down. My 9 yr old daughter can do it even. As for lumber. I just threw down a deposit on a Woodmizer LX55 with all the add ons. I highly suggest getting one. It’s a 6 month wait & $7grand. But it’s a tool you can make money from.
Hello chicken caravan. Thank you very much for this nice informative video. I just started following you. I live in Turkey and I want to produce laying hens that graze on pastures. I will benefit greatly from the guidance you showed. I am looking for an answer to a question that I am curious about. I using the number of 100 chickens as an example. In a strong pasture consisting of highly mixed and nutritious grains, legumes, green vegetables and some other vegetables, what should be the minimum area in square meters to feed 100 chickens in 2 days? Of course, I'm talking about a flat area where there is not even a single square meter of unused space. Thank you in advance, hoping you will answer this question.
My brother in law uses the Suscovich chicken tractors for pasture chickens. They love them too. Moving them is easy, no wheels on his I think. I like the connectors in place of bending.
Hardware cloth is the way to go! Here in East Texas, we have Bobcats, chickenwire is "nothing"! I have a run, because a chicken tractor is not something I am physically able to move, due to disabilities. Ahh...the good ole days when I was "capable"....
Thanks for this video! I love Joel Salatin, started looking into building an A-frame chicken tractor instead though. This is the first I’ve heard of Suscovitch though, so I’m thankful I found your video!
Man, those turned out great. Can’t wait to finish mine and get some meat birds in them. I had a friend help and we incorporated some extra slots for future expansion! Well, he incorporated extra lap joints. 🤷🏻♂️
If you drill a small hole through the door frame above the latch, you can run a piece of string through the hole to the latch and save yourself from getting locked in!
Love the 90 EMT connector idea. Getting all my 90 bends to line up was a headache...and it looks like junk (thank goodness for the tarp). I'll be using these connectors on my next ones.
What brand of poultry netting do you recommend? How does the netting you use hold up in a hard wind? Out here in the TX panhandle we regularly get 30-40 mph winds. How do you think the suskovich tractor would hold up in that kind of wind as you built it? I wish we had sawmills out here. Kind of hard to have a sawmill business when there aren’t any trees 😂
We use premier 1 electric netting. It gets pretty windy here and holds up well. I think the tractor would be fine just might need to anchor tarp down a little better if it’s always that windy
I’m new to the channel so this may have already been talked about, but umm, what are the bowling pins in your garage for?? Almost looks like maybe you refinish and paint them? 3:12
We didn’t have predators get in. You could put electric fence around them. I have also seen people run a low single strand of electric around the bottoms of tractors
@@KCFarms Sorry just another question ...could chicken be held permanently inside chicken tractors or you must let them out on daily basis or every now or then?
Great info, I just don't understand how you forget who you got that great idea of the poles from. That made this whole thing so much easier for me smh, but thanks anyways for sharing
I looked through the comments to see if anyone else had said anything. Is no one gonna mention the entire warehouse full of bowling pins this guy has on his property??? 😆
I really need to build one of these for some of my birds. Lately is has been very windy and rainy that no matter what type of cage I have, the tarp ends up functioning like a sail and flipping up the cage 😤
If you don’t have hardware cloth on the bottom, have you ever had problems with raccoons ripping it off or sticking their arms through and ripping the chicken’s head off?
Could you use it as a greenhouse when not growing bird? We're limited on space and considering raising some meat chickens and would like a greenhouse. Wondering if this could be dual purpose when not using for chickens.
In MO we get some very strong winds. Do these hold up well during 60mph wind gusts? Or is there anything you would change to make it heavier on the bottom?
Everyone that does a review of the book says the same thing about being a little confusing or that it is hard to understand. It must be a good book or folks would not keep buying it or building these tractors. I'm sure he knows this so it would be great if he would do a part 2 edition. I'm sure it would sell to folks like me that are carpentry idiots. lol Good video. I hate it when I get locked in. 🤣 luckily my neighbor was home.
@@KCFarms awesome feedback! Thanks for the response. Love the vids btw. Also I'm in kc how do I find u? I'm processing g my first chickens this weekend :)
@@KCFarms I think it would work out really well .. you could also put those spike strips around the sides that they have to keep pigeons off window sills.. the stakes could be in and out in a few seconds
Bet you got the mods from this guy: ua-cam.com/video/3G0QNrHTokA/v-deo.html I haven't built one yet but I've been spending this week researching, and just saw the mod video yesterday, so it was high up in my history and saved under my "Poultry" playlist. :)
It took you until 13:30 in your 15.5 minute video to actually start laying out the advantages of using the suscovich vs. the salatin model, and then it was literally 40 seconds of talking about the advantages before you started the 'hit the like/subscribe button' bs. You never once talked about the salatin model at all, except to say that's where you started. This was a waste of 15 minutes of my limited time. With a title like "which chicken tractor works best on our homestead?" I was expecting something a bit more insightful. I will likely not waste any more of my time on your videos.
And btw, before I get a bunch of hate responses, there is a lot of merit to this video, particularly in the construction of suscovich tractors. I'm not denying that. But the premise, according to the video title, implied there would be talk about which worked better for him, and why. Simply saying "it gives better access" and then the rest of the video is about the construction just doesn't cut it. I'm disappointed that I spent 15 minutes watching a construction video that was billed as a video about which style worked better for your homestead. I feel like I got click-baited. Which is exactly what happened. I simply can't trust that a video from your channel is going to be what it purports to be.
Why is there a name on these they been around longer than I been alive or my grandpa. People had to do what they had to do . . 4 foot dog kennels will work Even PVC pipe Cattle panels Why give credit to what’s been around Everyone gets idea and improve on it . To me get pallets and cattle panels with pvc of course chicken wire or hardware cloth . One of mine is a 10x10 dog kennel. With cattle panels you can turn it in to a green house dog house rabbit cage. Goat shelter . Etc . Well anyway not knocking it but I’m just saying they didn’t invent it to peg the name.
The dude perfected the design and then marketed it and sold it. Sounds smart to me. Lots of people getting into homesteading that dont know the old ways. He has an easy readable plan to build something and people wanted it.
If there’s somebody that has compiled systems into a comprehensive, repeatable methodology, they will understandably get “credit” for the methodology; regardless of where the equipment in fact originated. It’s not really about credit, though about communication. Describing the equipment as a publisher’s preference, is the least clumsy way to communicate the methodology.
I’m glad you didn’t edit out the lock in. That’s funny and real. 😂 really enjoyed this one.
Thanks. I had just talked to a buddy about the lock and possibly getting locked in. Of course it happens on the video!
Glad you're happy with yours, because that's the way I have just started!
I think you’ll be happy
Theres another company called Maker Pipe which makes connectors to build with conduit pipe.
That's a Jake 90 ie😊
Thanks for adding the blooper, and the build video. Love your channel!
Thanks for following along!! Appreciate the support!
Run a wire over a few inches above the feeder thru the center of a length of 1/2" PVC. This acts as a carrying reel to prevent perching above the food. Not an issue with meat birds, but needed for eggers and duals.
Going to build some of these soon! Thanks for sharing your experience.
😅🤣 locked in haha, great way to end the video
Welcome!
For the back part with the wheels lifting the thing off the ground, you could probably put some sort of rubber door sweep/draft stopper along the back wall
Hardware cloth on the lower sides does matter re predators in my experience.
I appreciated your comparison of two types.
I have locked myself in my chicken tractor before. Lol. I have a string inside now that will lift the latch!!
Agree on the hardware cloth! I've had coons maul chickens reaching through chicken wire.
That's what I'm doing thanks
Yeah..I changed my permanent coop hardware to a heavy duty, lockable latch that is impossible to get locked in..after locking myself in and crawling out the chicken door. Now my auto door is too small to do that, so, had to change. My girls are growing so fast, almost two weeks old now, might add heat to the coop and get them out after four or five weeks. Really enjoy having them inside, getting to know them.
Great video. We had been debating on the tractor options. This end was too funny
Subbed and liked. I plan on building one of these early next year and having a go a chickens. At work we use long lengths of 1x8 Teflon boards. Thinking of taking a few cutoff pieces to put at the front corners of the pen. Should make it that much easier to move
Thanks for following and good long on your journey
I'm getting ready to try out raising my own meat birds and I've been back and forth on what tractor I wanted to build. We've always raised laying hens with a permanent coop and due to building space I wanted to go mobile for the meat birds. Your video made my mind up for me, think I might use a different door latch though, LOL. Thank you.
Awesome glad it helped. A better latch is probably a good thing haha
@@KCFarms ok awesome thanks. You wouldn’t know where the best place to get that stapler would be do you? I think I might’ve found it on amazon
First time looking at these I can see the advantages for the smaller homestead, Salatin's hold 75 birds and doesn't recommend going in both work I Nice Job framing it with the full dimension lumber
Haha, hilarious ending, dad keeps getting locked in the chicken coop
Thanks for the upload. Likes and subbed. Great idea. Wife saw your video and has now ordered me to make 3 ☺☺☺ Million thanks
Haha your welcome! Appreciate you following along!
I’ve been using John’s design for years! I swear by these chicken tractors. I live in the Sierras of Kommifornia. But with our hilly property. I start at the top of a hill and go down. My 9 yr old daughter can do it even.
As for lumber. I just threw down a deposit on a Woodmizer LX55 with all the add ons. I highly suggest getting one. It’s a 6 month wait & $7grand. But it’s a tool you can make money from.
That’s awesome man
Hello chicken caravan. Thank you very much for this nice informative video. I just started following you. I live in Turkey and I want to produce laying hens that graze on pastures. I will benefit greatly from the guidance you showed. I am looking for an answer to a question that I am curious about. I using the number of 100 chickens as an example. In a strong pasture consisting of highly mixed and nutritious grains, legumes, green vegetables and some other vegetables, what should be the minimum area in square meters to feed 100 chickens in 2 days? Of course, I'm talking about a flat area where there is not even a single square meter of unused space.
Thank you in advance, hoping you will answer this question.
My brother in law uses the Suscovich chicken tractors for pasture chickens. They love them too. Moving them is easy, no wheels on his I think. I like the connectors in place of bending.
Yes you probably could drag them pretty easy without the wheels
Hardware cloth is the way to go!
Here in East Texas, we have Bobcats, chickenwire is "nothing"! I have a run, because a chicken tractor is not something I am physically able to move, due to disabilities. Ahh...the good ole days when I was "capable"....
Are those bowling pins in the background at 10:34?
Yes we have a bowling pin refinishing business.
I think i had you as my elementary PE coach
Are you is coach Lipham’s AG class
Thanks for this video! I love Joel Salatin, started looking into building an A-frame chicken tractor instead though. This is the first I’ve heard of Suscovitch though, so I’m thankful I found your video!
We love the A frame! Appreciate you following along!
You should go check John Suscovich out too, he's got a lot on pasture poultry.
Good video I'm glad I'm not the only one that gets locked in and has to have their kid😂
😂
I love the suscovich tractor....and I too, have been locked in..lol
Yes definitely need to fix it so I can open from inside
Hopefully the kids had a good laugh and took pics . . .🤣
😂
Man, those turned out great. Can’t wait to finish mine and get some meat birds in them. I had a friend help and we incorporated some extra slots for future expansion! Well, he incorporated extra lap joints. 🤷🏻♂️
Hey you can never be to sure always good to think ahead!
If you drill a small hole through the door frame above the latch, you can run a piece of string through the hole to the latch and save yourself from getting locked in!
👍 we did end up doing that. I was just one time to late
Love the 90 EMT connector idea. Getting all my 90 bends to line up was a headache...and it looks like junk (thank goodness for the tarp). I'll be using these connectors on my next ones.
I tried eyeballing the bends and found out it doesn’t take much bend
List of everything to make one
What brand of poultry netting do you recommend? How does the netting you use hold up in a hard wind? Out here in the TX panhandle we regularly get 30-40 mph winds. How do you think the suskovich tractor would hold up in that kind of wind as you built it? I wish we had sawmills out here. Kind of hard to have a sawmill business when there aren’t any trees 😂
We use premier 1 electric netting. It gets pretty windy here and holds up well. I think the tractor would be fine just might need to anchor tarp down a little better if it’s always that windy
We are in the TX Panhandle too and were asking ourselves this very thing. Thank you!
what's the basic dimensions on these?
I’m new to the channel so this may have already been talked about, but umm, what are the bowling pins in your garage for?? Almost looks like maybe you refinish and paint them? 3:12
You are correct!!
Did ever happen the predators to get in? How do you protect chickens?
We didn’t have predators get in. You could put electric fence around them. I have also seen people run a low single strand of electric around the bottoms of tractors
@@KCFarms Sorry just another question ...could chicken be held permanently inside chicken tractors or you must let them out on daily basis or every now or then?
We keep our Cornish cross in permanently and love the tractor twice a day so they are on fresh grass
@@KCFarms Thank you.
Great info, I just don't understand how you forget who you got that great idea of the poles from. That made this whole thing so much easier for me smh, but thanks anyways for sharing
Curious if you still like this chicken tractor over other designs and if you have links of where you got your piping, pipe bending, and staple gun.
Definitely like this tractor the best I don’t have links but I know you can get the book from John suscovich
Do you not have problems with predators digging in underneath?
We haven’t so far and now we own a livestock guardian dog
How wide is your door?
That looks like a way better design, so much easier to work when you aren't bending over 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
So much better!!
What are you feeding them and what $ does it run for the 8 weeks to harvest?
I looked through the comments to see if anyone else had said anything. Is no one gonna mention the entire warehouse full of bowling pins this guy has on his property??? 😆
Yup haha. We have a bowling pin refinishing business.
I really need to build one of these for some of my birds. Lately is has been very windy and rainy that no matter what type of cage I have, the tarp ends up functioning like a sail and flipping up the cage 😤
If you don’t have hardware cloth on the bottom, have you ever had problems with raccoons ripping it off or sticking their arms through and ripping the chicken’s head off?
I haven’t so far we are thinking of changing the bottoms to hardware cloth. Also we have put electric netting around them at times
Yes just put electric netting around and you’ll be good
I've had that happen. Put an electric wire around the bottom.
Word for the wise - use hardware cloth on the bottom - predictors will tear through that like hot butter
What did you use to attach your wheels? Is it just a regular screw?
Yes I think it is a 5/8 by 5 or 6 in. Bolt
Could you use it as a greenhouse when not growing bird? We're limited on space and considering raising some meat chickens and would like a greenhouse. Wondering if this could be dual purpose when not using for chickens.
Possibly might need to put plastic around the ends
In MO we get some very strong winds. Do these hold up well during 60mph wind gusts? Or is there anything you would change to make it heavier on the bottom?
So far we haven’t had issues I would drill a hole through the bottom boards in the trim and back and stake them down if needed
Are yall in KC or Tennessee?!
We are in Tennessee. The KC is my dad’s nickname
Everyone that does a review of the book says the same thing about being a little confusing or that it is hard to understand. It must be a good book or folks would not keep buying it or building these tractors. I'm sure he knows this so it would be great if he would do a part 2 edition.
I'm sure it would sell to folks like me that are carpentry idiots. lol
Good video.
I hate it when I get locked in.
🤣 luckily my neighbor was home.
Haha good thing
Do you keep the chickens in these over night?
How well does the chicken tractor hold up during tornado season?
Yes we do. We haven’t had issues with them so far
Soooo why do u like the suskovich tractor better than the salatin one?
The biggest reason is it’s easier to get inside to feed and water and also get the birds out for processing
@@KCFarms awesome feedback! Thanks for the response. Love the vids btw. Also I'm in kc how do I find u? I'm processing g my first chickens this weekend :)
We are in Tennessee. The KC was my fathers nickname
👍👍
Meat birds just sleep in the grass?
Yes
why not just make it out of those metals rods with the connectors? are they much more expensive?
I have thought about that but I like the weight with the wood so it can’t be lifted up as easy by predators
@@KCFarms how about some tent stakes in the ground to keep in it secure wouid that work?
That could work but then you pulling stakes out and putting them in everyday but not a bad idea. Maybe I need to make one and do a video?
@@KCFarms I think it would work out really well .. you could also put those spike strips around the sides that they have to keep pigeons off window sills.. the stakes could be in and out in a few seconds
Pvc would be much lighter.. ..
Definitely would I have seen a few built out of pvc
Bet you got the mods from this guy: ua-cam.com/video/3G0QNrHTokA/v-deo.html
I haven't built one yet but I've been spending this week researching, and just saw the mod video yesterday, so it was high up in my history and saved under my "Poultry" playlist. :)
It's not auto doe
It took you until 13:30 in your 15.5 minute video to actually start laying out the advantages of using the suscovich vs. the salatin model, and then it was literally 40 seconds of talking about the advantages before you started the 'hit the like/subscribe button' bs. You never once talked about the salatin model at all, except to say that's where you started. This was a waste of 15 minutes of my limited time. With a title like "which chicken tractor works best on our homestead?" I was expecting something a bit more insightful. I will likely not waste any more of my time on your videos.
This video should have been titled "How I constructed a suscovitch tractor" as that was the only thing you actually talked about.
And btw, before I get a bunch of hate responses, there is a lot of merit to this video, particularly in the construction of suscovich tractors. I'm not denying that. But the premise, according to the video title, implied there would be talk about which worked better for him, and why. Simply saying "it gives better access" and then the rest of the video is about the construction just doesn't cut it. I'm disappointed that I spent 15 minutes watching a construction video that was billed as a video about which style worked better for your homestead. I feel like I got click-baited. Which is exactly what happened. I simply can't trust that a video from your channel is going to be what it purports to be.
Why is there a name on these they been around longer than I been alive or my grandpa.
People had to do what they had to do . .
4 foot dog kennels will work
Even
PVC pipe
Cattle panels
Why give credit to what’s been around
Everyone gets idea and improve on it .
To me get pallets and cattle panels with pvc of course chicken wire or hardware cloth .
One of mine is a 10x10 dog kennel.
With cattle panels you can turn it in to a green house dog house rabbit cage. Goat shelter . Etc .
Well anyway not knocking it but I’m just saying they didn’t invent it to peg the name.
The dude perfected the design and then marketed it and sold it. Sounds smart to me. Lots of people getting into homesteading that dont know the old ways. He has an easy readable plan to build something and people wanted it.
☝🏻
If there’s somebody that has compiled systems into a comprehensive, repeatable methodology, they will understandably get “credit” for the methodology; regardless of where the equipment in fact originated. It’s not really about credit, though about communication. Describing the equipment as a publisher’s preference, is the least clumsy way to communicate the methodology.
He laid out his specific plan and instructions in a book, and sold it. Seems fair!