How Often to Move a Chicken Tractor

How often to move a chicken tractor is a feed decision, not a chore on the calendar. The birds eat what is under the house. When that forage is gone, the move is late. Manure has already piled on bare ground.

The move is the ration

Pasture planning starts from daily dry matter. The flock eats a set amount of dry matter each day. That intake, on the stand you actually have, is the paddock. A short move on a small pull spreads that intake across fresh grass. A long stay on the same square eats the reserve, then the crowns.

Net, when you use it, is counted in 164-foot rolls. A floorless broiler tractor does not take a roll. An egg-mobile yard does. The house type changes the fence. It does not change the rule. Size the stay from what the birds eat, then leave.

What a late move costs

Wait too long and the center of the paddock goes bare. The birds have scratched the same square until there is no leaf. Intake drops because the forage is gone. They are standing on dirt, not grazing.

Manure lands on that same bare spot. Nitrogen concentrates instead of spreading. The next rain moves it, or it burns the crowns that were trying to come back. You do not get a thicker stand from a late move. You get a scar and a hot spot.

Bare ground also stops working as a filter. The next flock, or the next rain, hits soil with no cover. That is how a rotation turns into a sacrifice lot with a roof on it.

Broiler moves

A broiler tractor is a short-stay house. The birds are on feed for a few weeks, gaining fast, and the pull is small. The move frequency on the sheet is short because the paddock is sized to one intake period, not to a long yard. Pull on that interval. Stretching it does not save labor. It spends the stand under the only birds you will finish this batch.

Shelter square footage is on the breed sheet. Do not shrink the house to force a longer stay. Crowding does not replace a move. It just puts more manure on less grass.

A batch also has an end. The last week of a broiler pull is the heaviest intake. If you lengthen the move then, you stack the most manure on the most damaged square. Keep the interval. The birds are finished soon. The stand is not.

Layer moves

Layers are a different stay. They live on the pasture, they scratch harder, and the move interval on the sheet is longer than a broiler pull. A longer stay still has a size. Daily dry matter times days on the paddock is the yard. Undersize it and the hens strip it before the planned move. You will see the bare center before you see a drop in the bucket.

Do not copy the broiler interval onto the egg-mobile, and do not copy the layer stay onto the tractor. Same species. Different house, different intake, different move.

Rest is not the move

The move is how often you pull the house. Rest is how long that paddock stays empty after you leave. A daily pull is not rotation if you bring the tractor back onto the same grass before it has leaf area. The rest window is on the pasture sheet. Stay off it. The move interval does not shrink the rest.