Originally this article was posted on the Chicken Page. While cleaning up my site I decided to make the chicken page more about the chickens we have for sale at LFF. I figured there would still be some interest in the general materials list for the Ultimate PVC Chicken tractor so I saved it and just have a link to this post on the Chicken Page Now.

 

The frame is 2″ conduit, I recommend conduit instead of plumbing PVC pipe as the conduit is treated to resist UV degradation.

10x 10′ 2″ sticks of conduit

 

 

11x 2″ Three ways

 

 

4x 2″ Three way corner, special order

 

 

6x Four way, special order, or 8x depending on your design

 

 

 

4x 2″ Elbows

 

The hoops and doors are made from 1/2″ conduit.

11x 10′ 1/2″ sticks of conduit

 

 

20x 1/2″ elbows

 

 

3x 1/2″ three ways

 

 

5x 1/2″ four way crosses

 

 

2 sheets of 4×8 siding or preferably heavy plastic for the doors
3 sheets of 4×8 heavy vinyl
1 8′ corrugated plastic window

I also used three handles, 13 hinges, 9 hook and eyes, 10 eyes and 6 carabiner clips. The front pull rope is used baling twine that I braided into rope. I also used baling twine to tie all the car clips to the cage so they don’t get lost. The chicken wire is held to the main frame with nylon wire holders and we use self tapping screws to mount those to the PVC framework. The vinyl sheets are screwed to the PVC with self tapping screws. We use zip ties to hold the chicken wire to the hoops. I used a heavy pipe that I welded wheel lugs to the end for the axle. I used a larger piece of roofing so that there was an overhang on the edges. I think that is everything, I may be off slightly but it will be close.

Where one section of chicken wire meets another we use hog rings to join the sections(We now use J- Hooks). We did this because if a large dog attacks the cage and manages to break a hoop the dog will still have to get through the chicken wire. We did this after a Great Dane attacked our tractor one time and broke two hoops. He was able to enter the cage between the sections of chicken wire and we lost 9 chickens.

 

To get the special fittings you will probably have to order them from the Internet. Below is a list of suppliers, I bought mine from the first link, they are the manufacturer and you have to order four boxes, but it is the cheapest source.

Snap Clamp Supplier Special PVC Fittings

List Of Suppliers from PVCPlans.com

Greenhouse Megastore

Building the tractor is straightforward. The conduit that we buy comes with one end belled to fit over another piece, we cut the bell off. In our area Menards has the best price on PVC and fittings. The sticks of PVC are 10′ long. The main frame is made of 2″ PVC. The width is half a stick (5′). The open run is one stick long (10′). The coop is 5′ wide and 4′ long. We made it 4′ long in order to get the best use of materials that come in 4’x8′ sheets.

The hoops are made of 1/2″ PVC. We cut the 1/2″ sticks in half. At the top of the run we connect the 1/2″ sticks to crosses so we can run a backbone of 1/2″ down the top of the hoops for strength and to keep the hoops evenly spaced. We use a paddle bit to drill holes into the 2″ main frame to slide the 1/2″ hoops into. The 1/2″ PVC has to be bent carefully into place as they take a lot of stress being bent into hoops. The chicken wire going over the top of the hoops prevents the ends of the hoops from coming out of the 2″ frame.

The food bowl shelf is made of 1/2″ PVC and chicken wire. The shelf is connected to the main frame on one edge, the other inner edge has pipe running up from it to connect to the hoops to suspend the shelf. A hole is drilled to slide wire through the end and over through the hoop to hold the shelf up. We then wrap the fence wire over the shelf area.

The coop has a frame of 2″ PVC. The vinyl exterior siding is screwed to the 2″ PVC frame using self taping screws. Inside the coop there are a couple of PVC pipe perches that help the chickens get up to the nest boxes along the sides and give them a place to roost. The run is attached to the coop with wire holders and self tapping screws. The top backbone of the run goes into the top perch that is built into the frame of the coop. We drilled a hole through both pieces of pipe and put a wire through them, that way the top backbone pipe cannot be pulled away from the coop.

 

 

 

 

When making a doorway like the front door or the feed doors we make a triangle from unused pieces of vinyl sheeting to place in the corners of the door frames. This prevents the door from swinging into the run and makes everything stronger.

The few improvements I will be making on the new tractor for this year will be:

1: The side doors will open like barn doors instead of dropping down. This will facilitate cleaning the nest boxes as everything can be scraped right out the back of the nest bucket. This was actually how we planned it originally, but we took a shortcut.

 

2: It will have bigger tires. The one down side to this coop is its weight. On solid ground it is easy to move around, but if its muddy or on rough ground the going gets tough.