Here’s another of the many “getting ready for winter” tasks we’ve been doing: Last Saturday we moved the portable hen house (the “eggmobile”) from the spot up on the hill where it sat all summer back down to the farmstead. We did this so it would be close to power and water, and easier for us to clear snow out of the way so we can gather eggs.
The spot we had the eggmobile in last winter — in a fenced paddock next to the pond, below the dog yards — turned out to be a disaster come springtime when we wanted to take it out to new pasture. It was so muddy we couldn’t move it with the tractor, and a neighbor came over with his skidsteer on tracks to help move it … and couldn’t. He finally brought over his small excavator with big tracks and that’s how we got it out of the paddock and up on to drive.
Having learned that lesson the hard way and with next spring in mind, we picked a much firmer, level spot close to the barn for this winter. In the photo I’m moving the eggmobile with pallet forks on the tractor — we have a hole in one tip of a pallet fork and put a trailer hitch ball through it, and hook on to the eggmobile that way. (It’s built on an old trailer chassis so it has a tongue with a ball hitch.) It’s much more maneuverable with the tractor this way than hitching it to one of the pickup trucks, and lets us get into fairly tight places.
To “home” the girls in their new location, we leave them on board for about 48 hours before opening the door to let them out for foraging. The eggmobile has power on board for lights, and at this time of year we plug in the trailer so we can turn on the lights for the early evening darkness (more “daylight” helps with the laying).
We had this eggmobile back in Montana and it made the trip to New Hampshire, too. We simply pulled it up onto our 24′ flatbed trailer, chickens and all, and one of the drivers who was hauling for us that year drove it out. He said he got the strangest looks when he pulled into truck stops — people would see this odd-looking structure on wheels with chickens looking out the windows.
Final Contest of The Year — Please Vote for the Farm!
The latest Shelter Challenge started Monday, October 8 and ends at midnight on December 16. Grand prize in this round is $5,000, plus $1,000 for weekly winners and $1,000 for state winners. There are also other categories … please see the Shelter Challenge website for details.
*** You will find us listed as Rolling Dog Farm. The state is NH for New Hampshire. ***
Please remember, you can vote every day … consider bookmarking the voting page to make it easy.
We just won $1,000 as a weekly winner in the last contest, and thousands more in the previous contests. The Shelter Challenge really does bring in a lot of money for the animals here!
You can vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Thank you for your votes!
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