It took longer than I planned to "create" a chicken tractor with a coop on it. Heck it is mostly framing and wire. Who would have thought it would take ten days once we started on it. Part of that was because I did not create a proper materials list. I do suggest that you come up with a definite plan and create a detailed materials list if you ever decide to make a chicken tractor. You can use pressure treated wood, don't let anyone tell you different, and I suggest that you do...chickens poop all over it, so it needs to be cleaned often, to keep chickens healthy. If you like to have an easier time of it, make sure you create it so that the poop will wash out a door or hatch of some sort. I highly recommend using sheet vinyl on the floor of a raised coop...and running it up the wall a bit, 6 inches is probably good. Make sure you use the best material for the job or you will be fixing it often. If you don't use pressure treated wood, you may get mildew or mold...and that is not good for chickens. Yes, I do speak from experience. I wanted pressure treated plywood, but the people at the store must have pulled a fast one on my husband because I have black mold growing on the outside of the coop now and the plywood is de-lamenating on the ramp up into the coop...so I will have to fix that.
A chicken roost is suppose to be 2 feet off of the ground or floor...that is the recommended height. It is also suppose to have two feet above the roost so that a chicken can flap their wings while on the roost. So I calculated that the coop part had to be at least four feet tall. Chickens sleep on roosts...at least mine do, so you have to keep that in mind when you place the roost, because everything under it will get pooped on. You also have to take in consideration the weight of full grown chickens, when building a roost...lets say 8 pounds, that is very heavy for most chickens...but it is better to calculate on the heavy side. Lets say you have a 48 inch roost, each chicken needs at least 8 inches of space to roost...they do bunch together. So, you could have 6 chickens on a roost that is 4 feet long...so that is almost 50 pounds of weight on the roost at any one time. I used a 2"x2" piece of green or pressure treated pine...it bows slightly now that my chickens are grown and I may need to put a support in the center of it...or switch to a 2"x4". If you have never built a chicken coop, it is a learning process. Oh, and don't use cedar wood on any parts that a chicken might chew on, the oils can make them sick. I have also learned that cedar shavings are not to be used in the coop either...I had thought about it to keep insects down to a minimum, but again it will probably make them sick. I use pine shavings in the coop and have put dry pine needles in the run at times, but mine has a wire floor...it helps when it rains and keeps the chickens dryer.
My husband went and bought additional wood for me several times, he brought back vinyl flooring for the coop floor. It was peel and stick tiles and I do not recommend putting them on rough plywood, if you want to use peel and stick you need a smooth surface to have them adhere well. We put the nest boxes on top and those are screwed into the wood, so they have not lifted from that area and I got the extra large kennel tray and put it on the bottom under the roost. The vinyl on the side walls did come off, but I didn't bother trying to put them back on after the first few attempts. That is why I recommend using sheet vinyl, it can by glued down and the upper edges tacked down.
I have found out that hens like to lay eggs in the same nest boxes other chickens have lain eggs in. But you need to provide at least 1 nest box for every 3 or 4 hens or they will lay wherever they want. Since my coop is 4 feet wide we made 4 nest boxes by basically putting plywood dividers one foot apart in between 2"x2" strips on the outside wall and placing a 2"x4" on edge in front of the nest boxes to keep the bedding inside. We were building our chicken tractor for six hens...or so we thought. We didn't even know what kind of chickens we would find in our area, at least, not yet.
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