Four to six hens, and six is the ceiling
The coop section is 19 square feet once the two-box nest bank has taken its 2.2 square feet off the floor. At 4 hens each bird gets about 4.75 square feet indoors. At 6 it is 3.2 square feet, just inside the 3-4 square feet per bird extension services publish for a coop with outdoor access.
The run is 33 square feet of mesh-floored grass. That is 8.25 square feet a bird at four and 5.5 at six. Because the run moves to new ground every few days, those numbers behave better than they would in a fixed run, where the same birds would strip the ground bare. Six is still the honest top, though. Past that, the answer is a fixed coop or a second tractor, not a seventh hen.
What it costs against the other A-frames and the hoop
| Design | Moves? | Coop | Run | Hens | Build time | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4x8 A-frame tractor | Yes | 10 sq ft | 16 sq ft | 2–3 | 14–20 hrs | $675–$875 |
| 4x10 hoop tractor | Yes | 14 sq ft | 20 sq ft | 2–4 | 12–16 hrs | $1,000–$1,300 |
| 6x10 A-frame (this one) | Yes | 19 sq ft | 33 sq ft | 4–6 | 22–30 hrs | $800–$1,025 |
| 6x8 A-frame coop | No | 15 sq ft | 26 sq ft | 3–5 | 20–28 hrs | $975–$1,275 |
Two things stand out. This is the most bird space per dollar of any movable design we draw, and it costs less than the static A-frame coop while holding more hens. The price of that is time and weight. It is the longest tractor build, at three weekends, and the heaviest tractor to move.
The hoop is quicker to build and lighter to handle, but it houses fewer birds for more money. Choose on flock size first. If you will keep four or more hens, the hoop is already at its limit.
583 pounds on a Tuesday morning
A seller quotes dry weight when they quote one at all. For this tractor that is 466 lb, straight off the bill of materials. Nobody moves it dry.
Add 4 inches of shavings on 19 square feet of floor, about 50 lb. Hang a full feeder and waterer, about 30 lb. Leave it out in overnight rain. Now it weighs 583 lb, and the hens add roughly 27 lb more if they are still inside.
The wheel arms put 43 lb on the grip bar and 540 lb on two 10-inch wheels. Small wheels on turf climb out of their own ruts rather than rolling, so the plan reckons 54-108 lb of push, from short dry grass up to soft ground or long grass.
Two reference points help. The UK Health and Safety Executive’s manual-handling guideline puts 55 lb on a man lifting close to the body at knuckle height, and 35 lb on a woman. The 43 lb grip load sits inside one and outside the other. And Penn State’s pastured-broiler guidance describes moving an A-frame of close to these dimensions with two people: one pulling, one steering birds clear of the frame with a broom. That second job is the one that saves feet.
So budget two people for every move. If there is only ever one of you, the 4x8 A-frame is lighter, and the chicken tractor guide covers the wider trade.
A light, tall gable is also a sail
Anything one or two people can move, the wind can move too. This tractor stands about 5-1/2 feet at the peak with around 52 square feet of side, and its empty weight balances that at roughly 63 mph of wind. The plan calls that an order of magnitude, not a rating. It ignores lift on the sloped panels, which is usually what peels off a hatch first. ATTRA’s housing guide notes that gable roofs blow over more readily than other shapes.
The fix is on the material list: two screw-in earth anchors with 15-inch augers, galvanized cable and turnbuckles to the skids. Screw them in and cable up whenever strong wind is forecast. Concrete blocks are not the same thing. If you live somewhere with regular high wind, set the anchors every time you move it and treat that as part of the move.
Headroom falls away from the middle
An A-frame has no walls, so every inch of height is in the middle. That drives three decisions in this plan.
The roosts straddle the centreline. Two 2x2 bars, 12 inches apart, set 18-1/2 inches above the coop floor. Each gives the hen on it about 30 inches of clear air to the rafters. A single bar dead centre would get more, and the second bar would get much less.
The whole right coop slope is the cleanout door. It is a 44 by 67-1/2 inch panel of thin ply on a 1x2 frame, hinged at the top. You clean standing beside it and looking in, not crawling. The plan includes a prop, and it matters. A panel that size dropping onto your neck while your hands are full of bedding is the injury this design has to prevent.
The run hatch is on the slope, too. A 28 by 30 inch hardware-cloth hatch, hinged at the top so it falls shut, gives you feed and water access without opening the coop.
No windows, so the ridge is the vent
There are 0 windows in this design. Ventilation is a continuous gap where the coop cladding stops 4 inches short of the peak on both sides, screened with hardware cloth and sheltered by bent aluminum ridge flashing. That gap adds up to 2.5 square feet, and it is the only permanent vent.
Never block it for winter. A tight coop holds moisture from breath and droppings, and that is the frostbite risk, not the cold itself. The ventilation guide explains why.
What this design deliberately does not do
It is not insulated and has no windows to open in summer. In a climate with long hard freezes or brutal heat, a movable coop with a thin skin is the wrong tool. Read the climate guide first.
It has no buried apron and cannot have one. The predator barrier is quarter-inch hardware cloth stapled under the run floor and up the slopes, travelling with the birds. Parked in one spot for weeks, it loses the reason it was built as a tractor.
And it is not a one-person machine. If that is a hard limit for you, build a smaller tractor or a fixed coop and don’t count on handling this one alone.