Build an egg mobile in less than a week..part 1

This morning I laid the floor bracing onto the trailer. As you can see in the pics..I chose to use metal brackets to make things simpler. The boards extending out the left edge will be used to support the nesting boxes later. Overall this gives interior dimensions of 8 feet by 16 feet.
The trailer frame itself is already a carved wooden beam that provided a flat surface onto which to place the brackets. That was on when I purchased the trailer and I am very thankful!
Later today we will last the flooring and raise the outside walls.

Science Lesson while collecting trimmings

While we were out collecting tree trimmings for the goats, I ran across this little ribbon snake hiding among the leaves.  Kaelyn took a liking to him so I showed her how to catch him on a stick. She was so proud that she could catch him and hold him there for everyone to see!

The pictures tell the story:

Turkeys roosting

Nighttime!
If you look closely you can see one hen with a pear in its mouth running from her neighbor.

More pears for feed

Here is todays gathered pears. They will be used for hog feed.. Turkey feed, plus goats and chickens.
plenty more to collect if we can find the time!

The new egg mobile!!

We found this trailer frame today. Perfect to build our new egg mobile!



We realized that we really needed to get moving on the new egg layer coop, since the chicks will be here in just a few days. After a few dead end phone calls we placed an ad in craigslist, and browsed all the craigslist ads between Medford and Portland.  With only a few possibilities, things didn't look too promising.

Then we took off to go collect pears for the animals at an abandoned pear farm near us. On the way we noticed an older flatbed trailer. The owners were outside stacking hay so we stopped to ask if they would be interested in selling it. Very nice people.. but they were still using the flatbed so the answer was no. However they remembered a neighbor of theirs that was building a chicken coop form this trailer frame and stopped. These guys were nice enough to stop their work, run to the house and get the neighbor's number, and even call him to see if he was interested in selling. What a blessing to meet such generous and welcoming people.

The neighbor was interested in selling so we headed over to look at it. It seems perfect for our egg-mobile! We struck a deal and I promised to return before dark to pick it up. So... we ended up finding the perfect trailer frame,  at the price we were willing to pay, not 10 minutes from our house.  AND  we found it on the very day we realized we needed it.

The world is filled with good decent people who care about others and want to help.

So stay tuned, over the next week or so that old trailer frame will be transformed to portable home for about 200 chickens.