The wheels on the coop go round and round

Silkieland, the new coop, has optional wheels now.  I’d been moving it along laterally to give them fresh turf every couple days.  I could scoot it sideways by running back and forth, back and forth, end to end, shifting it a few inches at a time.  Moving it longways was out of question – it is not drag-able. I just ran out of room to move it sideways, moving it from one tree barrier to another.

Just in time, a treasured  friend swooped in, and listening to me talk about how I had to get wheels on this imminently, took action, taking away my scrap piece of galvanized conduit and old wheelbarrow wheels, boring holes for stop bolts and “cotter pins”, making it all work and coming back with a completed axle.  Awesome:)

All I had to do was cut a notch in the bottom board, on the light end. 

I lift that end enough to roll the axle in to the notch.

Then that end is up 5″ ish off the ground.

Then I lift the (heavy with birds) coop end, and roll the whole thing.  Then I knock out the axle, unless I want all the birds oozing out underneath the gap  (which is ok sometimes) It works awesome!

The heavy end got a whole lot heavier though, like the fulcrum shifted majorly.  It was hard before, but with wheels nearly impossible.  I roped a loop and put that over my shoulders to get the difficulty level back down to hard.  It’s only for a few seconds, because it rolls admirably, even with the flat blown out tires.   This made me consider putting the axle notch on the heavy end, but then it still has to be lifted to get the axle under it.  Hmmm – more thought.  There’s options.

I want that axle to be fully and effortlessly detachable so that I can also use it on the next coop I build, which will be exactly like this one.

Just in time for the heat wave, I got the coop rolled under their fave pine tree for shade.

This coop/tractor is definitely my best design yet.  HW laughed and laughed when he looked inside.  He said it’s “like an apartment building!  You go down the hall and there’s rooms off to the side”.  But I know the birds like it because they lay eggs in all three “rooms”.  There isn’t a preferred suite, like the other coops all have- three nest boxes and they all want to use the same one.