As we have discussed before, our ducks not only provide us with fresh eggs, they also do an excellent job of spreading nitrogen-rich fertilizer. In the picture above, you can see the ducks in their new pen at top and the area they have just moved from at the bottom right. Compare this to the unfertilized grass in the left side of the frame and you can see the difference our quack pack can really make. In fact, we are so impressed with their effectiveness that we have decided to build a mobile pen or “chicken tractor” for some new additions to the farm.
This simple quonset style structure was quick and easy to build using leftover materials we had lying around the farm. This simple design is basically 4 pieces of lumber bolted together in a square with two heavy wire fencing panels (cattle panels) bent in an arch across the top. This also happens to be a great way to build a quick hoop greenhouse (see some of our earliest posts from spring 2015). In this case we covered it with chicken wire instead of greenhouse plastic to keep the chickens in and predators out and used a simple tarp to provide shade and shelter from rain.
This simple structure has been perfect for scooting around our new garden area, adding Nitrogen to the soil as we till our new garden space. This way our half-dozen broiler chickens get fresh grass all the time, our new garden gets fertilizer, and we get fresh chicken to eat.