Our Dominickers' Tractor

The Dominickers are now grass; two hens and their roo.

Our Dominicker chickens have moved into the finally-completed chicken tractor. With only one cockerel and two hens, our little homemade enclosure is sufficient at about forty square feet. (Densely packed, I believe the current norm is to allot two square feet per bird; leaving hardly enough room to turn around comfortably without bumping into a wall or another chicken.)

The black-and-white Dominicker chicken is, as I understand it, considered the oldest American heritage breed, descended as they are from English stock transported to the English Colonies in America. Understandably, the breed is also known as the Pilgrim chicken. They lay brown eggs and appear to be husky enough to serve as a decent meat bird also.

These three birds are better off being out of the kennel. True, they have less space--both horizontally and vertically--but they can now scratch in the grass, leaves and earth for tasty tidbits. I slide the tractor to new ground daily, sometimes more often. Although at first I waited until they were roosting to move the structure, when the distance to be covered is simply the length of the tractor unit the chickens move along with their housing without appearing to be upset.

Currently they have a half dog crate to use for shelter from weather. The hens sometimes choose to lay their eggs under the shelter, but sometimes they lay their eggs just outside the door to the shelter. In the not-too-distant future, I plan to replace the plastic half-shell with some sort of nesting area that is raised up off of the ground.

For now, I am just glad to have them on natural ground while at once enclosed in a predator-proof corral. When they are scratching in the earth, they appear to be in their element--and for that I am happy.