Will Chickens Be Warm Enough in a Chicken Tractor?

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Will Chickens Be Warm Enough in a Chicken Tractor?

by Sara
(Oklahoma)

Hello, my name is Sara, and I love your website, it has been very helpful. I recently bought your chicken tractor e-book and have got a brooder set up with 6 one week old baby chicks.

I live in Oklahoma and the weather is very unpredictable, our winter this year has been nuts...a half foot of snow on the first day of spring this year...anyways, I'm wondering if the chickens will be able to stay warm enough in this coop. Most other designs have a door of some sort to close them in at night.

Just wondering, and honestly don't know that much, but trying to find out all I can.

Thanks so much and God bless.

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Will Chickens Be Warm Enough in a Chicken Tractor?

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Your Chickens Will Be Fine
by: Sue Merriam

Congratulations on getting your chicks! Definitely keep your chicks in a brooder until they are eight weeks old. Once they have their full set of feathers, they should be fine outside.

When your chicks get too small for the smaller brooder, you can get a cardboard appliance box and use that for a larger brooder so your chicks have more room. We made two of these for our chicks recently. We lined them with an old vinyl tablecloths to keep the moisture from soaking through and ruining the floor of the cardboard boxes. Then we covered the top of one of our larger brooders with an old screen window and used hardware cloth to cover the top of the other brooder. It worked just fine.

We live in Oklahoma as well, and our two-month-old chicks were outside in our chicken tractors when the last storm hit. My husband leaned a piece of plywood up against one of the tractors on the north side. He covered the other tractor with a large piece of plastic. Plus, we put hay in the nesting boxes. The plastic blew off in the night, so I'd really recommend the plywood rather than just the plastic tarp. In both tractors, the chicks piled up together up in the nesting boxes and did just fine.

Editor's note: You can see pictures of Sara's brooder and chicks as well as read other homesteading topics by clicking here.

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