Visiting a vineyard this morning, I was pleased to see one of our growers has built himself a chicken tractor. I hadn’t seen on of these for a couple of years, so it was pleasing to see!
Now in case you have imaginings of us trying to save money on diesel by harnessing a flock of chickens in front of a plough and whipping them into action, and before you call animal welfare, I should explain.
A chicken tractor is in fact something that is towed behind a tractor. A moveable chicken coop of sorts. A chicken house on wheels.
The idea is to bring chickens into one’s vineyards so that they can roam about, scuffing up the soil, eating snails, mealy bug and other nasty insects, and composting the vineyard floor at the same time. There are flocks of guinea fowl as well as other ground birds on many farms that do just this, but they confine themselves to parts of the vineyard where there are trees nearby for shelter in case of danger, and at night. They do a great job in parts of vineyards, but don’t dare venture into other areas for fear of attack from a host of predators.
You obviously can’t release chickens to fend for themselves in a vineyard. Though they’re at home in a farmyard, they’re not that street-smart when it comes to the African wild, and if they weren’t eaten, they would probably wonder off and get lost!
Chicken tractors solve this problem. In the morning you round them up from their pens, and bring them to the vineyards in the mobile coop. This you park near to where the vineyard team is pruning, skoffeling, etc, and you release your fowls to peck about all day on a smorgasbord of insects. At the end of their day’s work you simply put some grain in the chicken tractor, they jump in and you drive them home to safety.
Tags: Chris Mullineux, Mullineux Family Wines, Swartland, Wine