Contemplating Raising Meat Chickens

I was talking with a friend of mine about my chickens recently, and a thought was planted in my mind about the possibility of raising a few more chickens for meat.  As I looked over the garden, I could see that the chicken tractor with my six chickens that will become egg layers wouldn't take up much space in the yard, even if I moved it every couple of weeks.  However, the small size of the chicken tractor wouldn't have enough room for me to increase the size of the flock inside it, so I would have to build a separate chicken tractor just to house the birds destined to grace my dinner table.

This tractor could be made differently since I don't plan on keeping the birds around long enough for them to need a place to lay eggs.  I will only be using it for a few months during a warmer season, so I won't need to build a heavy duty shelter to help them keep warm either.  I still want the coop to be easy to move, so it would be nice to keep it light weight as well.

I was thinking about building a 8 x 10 foot wooden frame for the bottom and bending hog panels to fit the frame and act as a support for the roof.  The roof would just be a heavy duty tarp stretched over the panels and tied down to keep it in place.  I might also get a short roll of chicken wire to cover the bottom section of the enclosure to help with ventilation and to keep the younger, smaller chickens from escaping.  One side would have to allow easy access so I can change food and water as needed and get to the birds if I need to.  Or I might rig up a feeding and watering system that I can access from the outside to make things easy on myself.  I would also secure perches inside the enclosure so they would have a place to roost at night.  I think an enclosure this size could comfortably house between 20 and 30 birds.

The actual number of birds that I end up raising will depend on how much they cost and how much work I want to do when it comes time to harvest them.  If I wanted to raise several smaller batches over the season, I could just build a couple more of the smaller hoop house runs and raise five or six at a time.  I already know that this size run is really inexpensive to build and could be ready to use in just a few days.  I also know that they fit over my garden beds too, and might come in handy later in the season as hoop houses after the chickens go to freezer camp.  This size enclosure might work better than a larger one, because it is fairly light weight.  If I attached wheels to one end moving it would be simple too.

A larger run would be nice because then I could keep all of the labor to a minimum - only moving one run around would be easier than moving multiple smaller ones.  The run could also do double duty as a greenhouse in the off season and would fit nicely over two garden beds at a time - still leaving me a pathway down the middle for easy access.

Right now I am just in the planning stages of the whole process and I'm sure that things will come together at the right time.  I like to take some time to think about what I want before I actually start to build something.  That way I can work out the pros and cons of each idea before I actually build it.