DIY Chicken Tractor Using a Truck-Frame
DIY Chicken Tractor Using a Truck-Frame
Learn how to create your own mobile DIY chicken tractor that can also act as a coop using an ordinary truck frame.
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by Jake Desjardin
Learn how to create your own mobile DIY chicken tractor that can also act as a coop using an ordinary truck frame.
When I had the urge to buy six chickens, I began looking into different coop designs. I also talked to a chicken-owning friend who told me he would make his coop mobile and smaller if he was to start over. Taking those things into consideration, I got to work making my own.
For the majority of my project, I was fortunate enough to use reclaimed material. A truck frame had been given to me a few years prior — a trailer with a pickup bed still attached. To start, I began with the bare, stripped-down truck frame, removing the leaf springs and relocating the axle to the center of what would become the coop.
Image by Jake Desjardin
After moving the rear wheels, I made a swivel axle for the front. (We’d had the axle and wheels on hand for a while because we didn’t have the heart to scrap them.) To make the swivel, I welded a 1-1/2-inch-diameter pipe to a homemade support on the front, and then welded a piece of solid rod to the axle that happened to slide nicely into the pipe.
I painted the frame and attached a square pull bar to the front of the axle that I can hitch to a garden tractor or four-wheeler to move the coop around my property.
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To make a stable base to build on, I laid a 2×6 along the inside of the trailer and traced around all the frame’s brackets. I cut along the trace lines with a jigsaw and used the cut board as a pattern for the next three boards. I bolted the 2x6s together to form two pairs and placed one on top of each frame rail. I made brackets out of metal plate and used them to bolt the 2x6s to the truck frame.
Image by Jake Desjardin
I was able to construct the coop frame using primarily reclaimed 2x4s.
Image by Jake Desjardin
I used a mix of textured and non-textured oriented strand board (OSB) to make up the exterior of the coop and the egg boxes. The windows are all 1/8-inch-thick Plexiglas, with three windows each on the right and left sides. Using standard door hinges, I hung doors on each side of the run and coop for easy access and cleaning. The door directly behind the nesting boxes opens downward so that it can act as a shelf when I’m collecting eggs.
Image by Jake Desjardin
I attached bent welding rods to light-duty chains to operate as hooks for holding up the doors.
For the center floor in the run and the coop, I used 1-inch galvanized chain-link fence with chicken wire laid on top. This allows all the droppings to fall through the floor.
Image by Jake Desjardin
I built the roost using 2x2s for rails and 1-1/4-inch dowels attached to the rails with nails. Above and below the dowels are 2-by-2-inch strips, also nailed to the rails, to minimize movement. I then wrapped the chicken run with chicken wire and added 1/4-inch hardware cloth to the bottom 12 inches to provide extra protection against predators.
I made the roof out of used OSB with a tarp laid on top and stapled along all the edges.
Two 2x4s with strips of leftover OSB screwed together make up the chicken plank.
