I think this is one of those "It depends" kind of situations. We are in mid-Michigan, have raccoons, opossums, and fox in our woods and adjacent fields. We have a fixed coop/hen house and a tractor and in 12 years of having chickens we've had 2 breaches of the coop and none of the tractor.(We've only had the tractor 2 years) I'm not sure if the tractor being relocated every few days confuses the predators, or maybe that we move the tractor around the outside of the dogs "yard" (they are strictly indoor dogs, but their area of the yardis to the south east of our house.) Their areas don't overlap, but I think the dog's scent is close enough to deter them.
A freind of mine moves her tractor back to her barn every night, but that's too much work for me. ;o)
--Shelley
From: Liz <lizsimmons@ymail.com>
To: CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, May 27, 2011 11:44:03 PM
Subject: [CHICKENS-101] Portable coops - tractors
Hi, as I'm trying to figure out what type of chicken coop we'd like, I've come across the information that by using a portable coop, aka tractor, the chickens get all-natural grains and insects in their diet which could provide tastier eggs. My question is, isn't the lack of protection underneath a portable coop a concern for predators? When building their daytime run, I had planned on including some extra protection underground under the fence to protect from digging predators.
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