My husband built this chicken tractor to help increase the fertility in the barren northern side of the raspberry field. It fits between the two rows of raspberries and we move it along about every two weeks, allowing the chickens to scratch up the grass and leave a layer of manure. The scratched-up ground behind the tractor is then sown with chicory and covered in mulch to promote new growth. The grasses also recover from the roots.

Chicory is deep-rooted and will penetrate the clay better than grass will, hopefully improving our soil depth in this hard area.



The tractor is made from wood left over from a messmate gum tree that was within 30m of our house, that we had milled and mostly used to insulate our house better.

Last year we raised meat chickens in the chicken tractor, and this year we are trialling some laying hens. The laying hens will be moved to a larger run once that is ready. In the future we plan to use the chicken tractor for raising baby chickens to pullets.

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