Chicken Tractors 2.0

It’s been a long summer, but we’re finally back.

We’ve got a full pasture.

In hindsight, losing everything during the derecho at the end of May was a blessing. A clean slate. The chicken tractors I had originally were a great place to start, but if you’ve been following along you’ll know I’ve always had my eye on another style too: the Joel Salatin Chicken Tractor. Considered one of the forefathers of pastured poultry and the grass farming movement, Joel is likely a familiar name for some of you and his method is tried and true. While I never doubted the effectiveness of his methods, there were a few things that appealed to me more about the Suscovich Tractor, mainly its smaller footprint for accommodating smaller flocks and its greater height for accommodating people. Admittedly, the appeal of its height was selfish—the birds couldn’t care less the Suscovich Tractor stands at 5.5’ (if chickens could ever grow that tall we’d have much bigger problems on our hands)—but I liked the idea of being able to walk right into the tractor. I’ve realized at the end of the day though, it all depends on your farming style and your goals. Both are effective chicken tractors, depending on what you want to do. The Salatin tractor has started to win me over after a month of running it though, and here’s why…

Do what works best for you and your farm.

The bigger the better

At 120 square feet, the Salatin is twice the size of the Suscovich, meaning you can fit twice as many birds in the tractor. This is important for a couple of reasons: the more obvious being it means more space for the birds and the second reason is its scalability (more on this shortly). It’s also important to keep in mind it’s not only about the birds, regenerative agriculture is also about the land—leaving the soil better than you found it. With larger land coverage, the Salatin tractor lets you spread all of that good nitrogen-filled chicken manure further across your field. If you’ve got acres to cover, this is of huge benefit to your soil.

To give a sense of its size, here’s its 10’x12’ frame.

Durability and protection

It’s unfair to judge a structure, let alone a small structure like a chicken tractor, against an anomalous storm like a generational derecho that hits roughly once every 50 years, but by all measures the Salatin is more durable than the Suscovich. For one it has a lower profile and as a result fights less drag. For another, instead of a tarp (ahem, a sail), the Salatin features a metal roof. Now Salatin rightly recommends aluminum for the top due to its lightweight, but if you’ve been metal shopping recently you know how hard/costly it is to get your hands on aluminum sheets these days and I’m happy to say that light gauge galvanized steel will get the job done just fine.

I do sleep more peacefully with a low, metal top.

Tip: If you don’t have metal handy or want a cheaper alternative, you could consider corrugated plastic. I know others have had success with corrugated plastic, but it will be less durable and would likely need to be replaced more often.

How big are we talking?

Before getting into pastured farming I’d recommend not only doing your research, but also considering exactly how far you plan to take it. If you’re raising small flocks to feed you and yours, as I did starting out, then a smaller chicken tractor is all you need. But, if you have the itch and think there’s potential you might go the extra mile towards selling, then I recommend starting with a more scalable model early. After some time of family-friendly flocking, I stubbornly stuck with the Suscovich because I was already invested in it. I had five Suscovich tractors built and ready to go when I decided to get my licence and scale up, and I was not about to spend more money and time rebuilding other tractors—of course with my luck, mother nature had other plans and forced my hand nevertheless.

If you’re looking to scale up, the Salatin has way more bang for its buck. Again it can hold twice as many birds as the Suscovich, roughly 75 birds to the Suscovich’s 30 birds per tractor. At first blush and a very small scale that doesn’t seem like much, but if you’re scaling up the difference matters quickly, both in time and money. It could potentially be the difference between doing just a few thousand birds and tens of thousands of birds with roughly the same amount of effort.

But like anything else, there are drawbacks…

Movement and convenience

Unlike the Suscovich or other smaller chicken tractors, you ain’t pulling this bad boy on your own. You’ll need some other tool to move the chicken tractor, whether that be a dolly or a sled. If you know your way around a welder a little bit and want to take the more effective method, tack yourself up a custom dolly like you see here. There are a variety of ways of making the dolly, but I’d recommend going at least no less than 4’ wide to stabilize the weight/width of the tractor and as roughly as tall as your shoulder-height for leverage. Slide that dolly underneath the backside of the tractor and lay it flat to break the tractor’s contact with the ground, while giving it wheels, and pull it from the front side with some rope or tensile wire you’ve strung up. You’ll be surprised how easily it moves. If you don’t have the resources or can’t weld a custom dolly, an alternative is to create a wooden or plastic sled that slides under the back that you can then drag from the front. The key to moving these tractors is to break contact with the ground and reduce friction, but wheels work best.

You’re gonna have to bend

Now speaking as someone that’s 6.1’, the 5.5’ tall Suscovich Tractor felt better in theory than it did in reality, especially with the arched top that gets as low as 3’ at some ends. To me, the Salatin actually is much more comfortable to move around. Once you pop the lid off it you can walk around freely to attend to the chickens as you need, albeit while bending over—but dealing with small birds you’re fooling yourself if you think you’re not bending over at some point. In my experience, for someone of my size, the Suscovich was actually more annoying and painful to move in, constantly having to crunch over with my back getting caught up or cut on the chicken wire that was strung across the top of the roof. Pick your fit depending on your size, but if you’re raising chickens you’re going to have to bend over continuously either way, don’t kid yourself.

The cost

If you’re trying to compare cost, they’re relatively the same nowadays. A few years ago when I was getting started, cost was another main factor for picking the Suscovich as it was cheaper due to its smaller footprint. Today, with lumber and metal prices that has changed. The Salatin features smaller lumber that you can rip into halves or thirds in order to build, whereas the Suscovich is mostly treated 2x4s that add up real quick if you’re building multiple tractors. Also the EMT Conduit to build the roof of the Suscovich has more than doubled in price in the last year (here in Southern Ontario), whereas substituting aluminum with light galvanized steel in the Salatin for me has helped reduce costs. I’ve built multiple Suscovich Tractors (RIP) and multiple Salatin Tractors this year, and I can confirm in my area the cost today is relatively the same. And again, considering I can fit twice as many birds in one Salatin than I can in one Suscovich, it’s a no-brainer—I should recoup my money and become profitable twice as fast in the Salatin (knock on wood).