The Chookmobile

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A couple of months ago I managed to pick up an  ancient box trailer at a clearing sale for $100.  It was pretty rickety, but had a light structure on top of a reasonable axle with 2 good wheels and tyres (and a couple of spares).  The tow hitch was broken - as was most of the bracing - so it was brought home (only 3 km) very carefully.

I knew right from the start what I wanted to do with it.  I wanted a mobile chicken house for up to 50 laying chooks.  I bought a set of nest boxes and got James the Trailer Doctor on the job.  What came back is a work of art.

Here are photos - first from the rear and then the front.  James made a structure to fit over and around the existing box.  It supports a new roof and a fox-proof back door.

On each of the rear corners James has added a 'leg' that means farmers of over 100kg can, at a pinch, get inside without overturning the whole enterprise.

Inside I have added enough perch space for at least 30 birds, a waterer and a feeder.  I've put cardboard on the floor held down with staples.  When it comes to to clean it out, hopefully, most of the mess will come out with the cardboard to go straight into the compost heap.

From the front you can see the jockey wheel and how James has fitted the nests.  They are commercial ones with a rollaway egg collection system accessible from the outside.

We took the Chookmobile straight into the Trufferie where they have a confining fence - as well as being locked away at night.  In time we may also get a Maremma dog for further fox and dog protection.

The whole thing tows easily behind our Polaris Ranger.

The point of this is that a mobile chook house avoids the concentration of scratching and manure deposition that happens around a permanent structure.  Not only can we move the Chookmobile around the Trufferie, but we can take it anywhere else on the farm.  In addition, a grazing bird can get a reasonable proportion of her feed from pasture and the critters she finds as she scratches.  Not to mention the fertility that gets spread around.

We started with a borrowed rooster and 4 black hens as Chookmobile testers - and they settled in quickly.  Yesterday we bought 10 Isa Brown hens as the start of our own flock.  They are as beautiful (and interesting) as chooks are everywhere.
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