Jeremy and the kids spent the weekend building a chicken tractor to house our "local chickens" as they're called here. Local chickens are basically just the chickens that people own that are running around everywhere. Or in America the politically correct way to say it is: free range chickens.
Some of the Rainbow kids (including our own son) have invested some of the money they earned doing odd jobs in buying chickens. These chickens have become somewhat of a nuisance however in that they're eating our seeds and plants in the garden.
In comes the chicken tractor. All of the chickens are housed in the tractor which can be moved as needed to different areas of the yard. The good part about this is that it helps with our permaculture gardening as well. The chickens scratch and peck up the hard ground under the tractor as well as add their manure and compost to the area. It's a win-win for both the garden, the gardener, and the chickens. (Or would that be win-win-win?)
Jeremy's goal was to make this chicken tractor out of easily available resources from the village. And it needed to cost next to nothing to make. We want this to be easily used and copied by those in our permaculture class or anyone else interested. Jeremy made this one out of 6 shoots of bamboo, wire, and chicken wire.
Baby J helping with the building!
Now the kids are helping Jeremy pick the perfect spot to try out the new chicken tractor.
This looks like the place!
The chickens needed plenty of mulch and straw on the ground. So the kids set about finding and making a bed for the chickens.
Time to move the tractor!
The view of our garden from standing behind our house.
Once in place it was time to round up the Kuku's (chickens).
Disclaimer: no chickens were harmed in the process of moving them to their new home!
Although here it looks like Jeremy's strangling one! ha!
Now if this doesn't make a teachers heart happy I don't know what does! These kids spent the remainder of the day watching these chickens and finding them food and water!
Providing shelter from the cold.
I love this one! The boys were loving getting to peep into the lives of their chickens.
Our dogs even came over to check it out!
The back of the chicken tractor has a top shelf or ledge for the chickens to lay eggs. Here Jeremy is building a ladder to get up to the ledge.
Simba
Mama Chicken taking care of her little chicks who are all huddled underneath her!
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