Chicken Tractor Refurb!

When you keep more than just a few chickens having some extra pens is essential. 

They have lots of uses but having somewhere to keep a poorly chicken away from the others is essential and a pen around this size also makes for a great broody coop for a hen to sit on some eggs and have the chicks have safe access to some grass outside. 

This chicken tractor/ark is one I built in 2008. The picture above is how it looked when I first built it, complete with cedar cladding in our very tidy garden at our first house!

The picture below is me putting our first ex-battery hens in the coop and my first chickens since leaving home.

Me at 25!

I'm just 25 in that picture and it's fair to say that the pen and I have both aged somewhat! The pen has pretty much fallen apart this winter, I'm just holding together...

It's my own fault I should have lifted it from the grass to stop the bottom sitting in the wet when it's not in use. And so the bottom rails has rotted out completely.

A few bits of cladding have fell off as a result, but luckily the rot doesn't go any higher.

I decided that if I left it any longer I would probably need to burn the coop, so a renovation was on the cards! 

The video below shows what I did. It didn't take too long and didn't use huge amounts of wood so I'm pleased that I managed to get it done rather than delay it!

Even if you don't watch the whole video it's worth skipping to the end - the outtakes with my Boy are quite funny! 

And here's the coop ready to last a few more years.

Do you keep a spare pen for your poultry?

What's the best repair you've done on something that was rotten?