Repurposing a chicken tractor

[tank333]

So, I have a chicken tractor I'm not using, and I was thinking about repurposing it as a large grow out pen for the buns. I don't have the time to be moving it every day to prevent tunnelling, so I was thinking I could just cover the bottom with 1/2"welded wire, and put the whole think up on cinder blocks. Would this work, or would I need to use a different hole size wire? I'm looking at getting this wire at home depot: http://www.google.com/shopping/prod...a=X&ei=IlaNU8aKIs6JogSJvoD4DQ&ved=0CCoQ2CkwBQ

Also, the tractor is 4'x8'. I know I will need to run a piece of lumber down the middle to keep the two 2' pieces together. How far apart should I put the supports that will go crosswise? 24"? 32"?

 

[Marinea]

I am a visual person. It would really help me to see a picture of the tractor.

The 1/2 inch wire sounds good, but as far as supports and such, a pic would be great.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Are you thinking of using it for grazing at all, or just as a large pen?

If you want to be able to let them graze (even if you wont be moving it all of the time) the 1/2" wire will just smash the grass/weeds down so I would use 2" x 4" field fencing as the bottom. You can get it in varying heights, one of which is 4' so you wouldn't need a center brace. Of course, this will only work if you have the pen on the ground.

If, on the other hand, you will have it on a permanent raised base, the hardware cloth will work. Get the heaviest gauge you can find- the thinner stuff may cause sore hocks, although it is not as likely with lighter weight rabbits.

We used it on our raised vegetable beds as a gopher barrier, so I know that it is available in 4' rolls. Apparently your local Home Depot doesn't stock it, but I am sure you can find it elsewhere. I would sandwich it between two pieces of lumber to provide more support and prevent it from being torn off easily by a predator.

 

[JessiL]

I just did the same thing with a one-time rabbit tractor, but it already had a floor (re-purposed wire shelving) so no need for additional supports in this case. I used 1/2 x 1 standard rabbit cage wire and all is working out great. If you end up going with something more like a hardware cloth, I'd err on the side of caution with plenty of supports.

Like MSD said, if it's ever going to sit on the ground, do something different. All of my tractors have bottoms with one dimension being 2 inches max, the other one as big as possible and along the axis of tractor movement to let grass stand up tall. Even then, kits sometimes manage to wiggle out. Usually they end up with their neighbors instead of outside (my current tractor design is a "double-wide"), they are so young when they can do this that they have little incentive to go far.