A mate dropped by our house early on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, looking excited. “Quick, jump in!”, he said. I hopped into his little hatchback, and we took off towards Albion Park.

“What’s going on?”, I asked.

“Someone’s dumped a chicken tractor on the side of the road! We’ve got to get it before someone else does!”

Sure enough, there on a quiet stretch of Jamberoo Road, where people usually dump old TVs and mattresses, was a chicken tractor!

We hopped out and had a good look at it. It was in perfectly good condition. Someone had put some care and effort into building it – they’d used flashing to waterproof the roof ridge, and had given the whole thing a good coat of paint. The wire was all intact.

I’ve no idea why someone would dump something like that. The tip shop would take it for free, or you could get rid of it on FreeCycle without any trouble. You could probably even sell it for $30 or $40.

So we hoisted it up onto his roof racks, tied it down, and brought it back to our place.

What a great friend to have!

One of the best things about living on an acre is having the space to take advantage of these kinds of finds! There’s always somewhere to stash another pen or cage, or some timber, or fence panels :-).

As luck would have it, another friend and neighbour dropped around a surplus rooster a couple of days ago – lucky we had this pen! He’s now happily living in the chicken tractor until I get time to process him.

12 Comments

    • @farmer_liz: I agree! My wife, not so much. At least we have a few out-of-the-way places here I can stash them where she won’t find them straight away :-).

    • @Madeleine: Even better, my workplace was giving away a bunch of old laptops, and I gave him one for his kids to use. He was stoked!

  3. Hi Darren,

    What a great find. All I find around here that are worth stopping for are plastic buckets that builders leave behind.

    BTW, loved your article in the Illawarra Mercury. Well done,

    Gav

    • @Gavin: I guess it’s one of the benefits of a longish commute. I’ve found quite a lot of useful stuff – plastic crates, lengths of timber, buckets, tubs, water containers, timber pallets, even a few tools! I’ll try to write up a post about the Mercury story tonight.

    • @Sailors Small Farm: Maybe our roads are nice and bumpy, so things bounce out of the back of utes and trucks :-). I once found a water container, brought it home, drilled a hole in it and installed a chicken waterer, and then my mate (the same one from this story) saw it and said “hey, that fell out of my ute!”. He didn’t mind, though, as he had picked up half a dozen of them that they were throwing out at his work.

  6. Mausa

    I wanted something like this forever but earlier this year found one on the verge side collection less than 500 metres from our home. Unbelievable. Slightly larger I think made from metal with wheels on one end and handles on the other. I move it every other day and call it my weed n feed. I was so amazed that someone would throw it away.

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