Chickens earn their keep

This summer I built a chicken tractor. You can read more about that here. 

I built the dimension to be the same width and half the length of our backyard 5'x16' raised garden beds. The 5'x8' tractor fits neatly on top of the sides of the beds.

This allows me to put the lightweight tractor over a bed, and then after stuffing the birds in there (they haven't figured out how to get up into the beds and the tractor on their own) they scratch, poop and generally make a mess of the garden. This is EXACTLY what I want. They till the soil, eat bugs and leftover seeds and plant material.