Perfect Mobile Chicken Coop Just Got Better

Oh, I should have started the car for you. Oh no, do we have spare? Well, yeah, upstairs. Okay, good, we have a spare. Bye-bye. You guys going with me on chores? Nope. Hey, did you do your chores, Lily? Ear muffins for all. Rebecca had an appointment in town. Josiah's getting open the ear muffins. We had to call about our smoker to be picked up at Lowe's, ordered it, they have them. Somehow they didn't pull it. Grandma and Big Daddy went to pick it up. Thank you, Grandma and Big Daddy. But that wasn't there, so she's gonna— we've been on that this morning. And the internet's out since the big storm last night. This is good news. These are quick connects for our water supply line. We can start working on that. We're getting a little bit of a late start on the farm today. We had ordered a smoker for our bacon from Lowe's. It's been several days and we had to deal with that this morning. Turns out they have it in the store. They don't know why it was pulled. They pulled our other stuff, what else we ordered. Um, looks like Rebecca's gonna have to go into town to do that, but what you do for bacon. The sheep are down in the wild elderberry patch. We have a lot of wild elderberry down there. They're eating something down there, making it easier for us to get to them. Fat hen explosion, that's just what we're gonna call them spreading the manure. How'd you guys do? Let's let you guys out. How'd you guys do in the new modification of the Chickshaw? That is one of the problems. You let it down and they got to jump over the legs. Not a big deal, they can do it. I think it could be smoother. Oh, sorry guys, let me spread this. More chickens means more spreading It's gonna work, Josiah. So this is a prototype. Several of you guys have said, well, why not switch this front end to the back? Yes, yes, I thought about doing that at first, but the legs used to be here, guys. And I said, I thought about that. Could we put the handle here? No, because then the legs would hit when it leveraged up. But since then I figured out that, hey, we could put our, our legs at the handle, at the end of the handle. So yeah, I don't see— I'm looking at this. Could I just switch it and have the handles coming out this end and the door would open up in the back? Free and clear. We wouldn't have to worry about it clearing our handle. It barely clears our handle. It even hit there a little bit, and none of that would be in the way for the chickens to get out. They'd be less likely to perch and manure on these legs. I like it. So thank you, guys. Josiah's calling me. She's got a chicken over there. Is it dead? Well, what's wrong? Really? Weird.

Do you think the rain could have done it?

No, I think it's probably just sick. Look, it's got its eyes closed.

We should bring it back to the way everything is.

What is wrong? Hey. Oh wow, what a beautiful sight! Wow. I'm trying to think, why did I put the door on this side? I think It's because my original design was much wider. It was 6 feet instead of 4, and I think— yeah, that's what it was. It's be easy— if that is, it's easy to come back here and get your nesting box nesting material and there's nothing in your way. But with this thing, you can easily reach over if there's handle there. And then I don't know if that makes 100% sense because you have to come out and shut this at night and then open it in the morning. So you're having 2 visits to the door and only 1 visit to the egg. So it makes sense to put the handles here. It makes all the sense to put it here, put it there. A number of people are saying, why don't I fold my front legs? Well, I just— this is simpler for us. There's no, there's no folding it latching it on somehow. Just making it shorter. Sure, it's a little hot roddish, it's a little lower in the front, but just shorter legs. I mean, I could just pull up Sally and just do this and put it on there, and it's clearing, I don't know, 6, 8 inches, and that seems to be enough. Now maybe we're getting— I mean, we went through some pretty wild terrain going through that ditch. You're fine, fine. Oh yes, it works so good. So We'll see, but I think we've gone through the wildest terrain we're going to go through that we won't need to fold it, and it just makes it that much more simple. Yeah, look, they're having to jump up over it to get in. Let's change this as soon as possible. Somebody said, well, we could shorten this. Well, not really. Even if the door's not here, you have to have so much room for walking. Like, you want to be able to step and not hit the, the coop. So this is a good distance. And I like it because that's an 8-foot— that's an 8-foot board, and that's what they come in. It's gonna be really simple for people to make, no cuts. Yeah, look at that. That's just too— that's just too close. We can do something different. So thanks to all those people with ideas, sharing the idea for the V-tongue and all that. One reason I put the door at the handles early on is because the chickens are going in and out, so there's a lot of weight, and I was afraid of toppling. But with the weight of the, the new handles, it's not going to topple. It's not. It's just not. All right, I just got water to use. It's nice and cool. They didn't even drink any of their water. Nice and cool and all that rain. They're getting water from the grass. I'm kind of leaning towards doing this. We've got Grandma's coop right now. We can easily— oh shoot, nope. Ah, shoot, no, because they're using— we switched. We gave the— well, we could remove the coop. If it's just for a day, we can work on out here. We could just come and get— oh, could we?

Yeah, just get one. You think we could get out here? Get our tents.

You think? All right, that, that's maybe a possibility. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. These King feeders, I don't know if they're working real good on turkeys. They get clogged up and the turkeys— I don't know, they don't have— what's going on, guys? They don't have the aggression to— like chickens to pick under there and make it fall out. So I tried some in a feed pan, but it looks largely untouched and very much rained on. Run out soaked feed. Look, that means they've been perching on this, guys. Mucho holy turkey squat in there. Okay, we're gonna pull that forward. They're getting big. Hopefully harvesting them in 5 weeks when we harvest our second batch of sea monsters. We timed it. We want young ones. We want small turkeys. We want a 10-12 pound carcass. Sea monsters up for a move sideways. Hey guys, we only got 2 more days of this. No, 4 more days. Third— hey, we won't even move them Thursday. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, guys. Maybe we will move them Thursday just to get them out of their manure. Harvest day come Thursday. Jonah had the idea to bring A little one out. That's a little sea monster. So that's 2 and a half weeks, that's 7 and a half weeks. You see how fast— see how fast they grow? Rebecca's on her appointment. Maybe she's not in the middle of her appointment. Hey, hey, we have about an hour. Should I switch to the arms on that on that shawl. I guess— did you hear her? Are you looking for her?

Yeah.

Okay. Hey, let's go get it. Oh nice, what's that?

Three-legged stool.

Cool, that's really cool. You gonna milk with us now?

That's for the, uh, treehouse.

Okay, okay. We have really a little less than an hour before milking time. Let's go get that Shaw. Let's just do it real quick. Let's just borrow it from him real quick. Hopefully we can do this in 1 hour. All right, we're gonna try this. It's gonna be the gnarliest terrain you could ever imagine, which is like a steep bank. Will you get the nesting boxes out? We'll just leave them right there where it is. I actually don't think it's gonna make it up there. It's going to be too steep, isn't it? I'm going to, I'm going to top out there and then maybe it's going to bottom out. So I don't think we're going to make it, so I'm just going to go slow and back up. We're not going to make this. How's it doing?

You're doing pretty good.

It's not catching anything? Not the legs or anything?

Not yet. You might actually make it.

Whoa, stop, stop!

Stop, stop, stop! You're breaking it!

Oh, am I?

Look!

Oh snap! Okay, and those are bolts. Okay, I think I pull forward.

All right, come on, pull forward.

Yeah, that was too much for that cedar. I think just pull it up, pull it up through there, washer and all. I'll just have to tighten it up, man. Okay, the good news is it didn't scrape the bottom or the legs. All right, let's go.

Anyways, I can finish this for you.

All right, that garage is going to be in the way. Push it!

Push the garage down!

All right, that's good. All right, come on, Jonah. Good idea on the garage. Oh wow! All right, halfway check-in. Oh, we've got it undone. I think the thing that took the longest— well, I know the thing that took the longest is the U-nails that were in this mesh floor. 1 inch, by the way. You want to go with at least 1 inch so manure falls through. Don't go cheap, get a half inch, then manure doesn't fall through. That's the whole— that's one of the big points of this. You don't have to clean out the scoop. Okay, we're still connected over there, just, uh, right?

Let's get these.

Yeah, where? Probably in the side. You got both those out? Huh, what is holding us? Oh, maybe we're just catching. Oh, oh, we're unconnected there. I think so. Jonah, you got that end ready? Oh yeah, it's just leverage. Jonah, pick up on that end, honey. Pick up on the end over there, honey. Go down there to the tongue. Lift up on it. Yeah, there you go. Great work. Oh, we have a nip. Okay, you hold it. Whoa! Okay, that did it.

That's heavy.

All right, just say, uh, walk around.

I'm just holding it safe.

Our only problem is that we notch this out to get our arm through, so this is actually going to have to back up to this point. So we are going to have to make it an inch and a half shorter because we're going to have to cut this. Look, and we're going to cut that notch in the plastic there too, but that's no problem with the Sawzall. Everybody's got safety gear on. You've got ear muffins and glasses. Guys, I think putting it back together is going to be quicker than taking it apart. Let's, let's zip this off and get it back together. All right, guys. Almost 15 after 9. I like to milk at 9. We can be up to 30-ish minutes late, maybe a little more. Hey, we got it all together. All we lack is now flipping it. Pretty confident in this, right guys? It's gonna be good. Let's flip it, secure our perches, and add up— we forgot to put our braces on the last time. A couple of braces over there we need to put on. Let's do it. First impressions, Jonah? It's a little weird because we're used to it the other way. It's completely backwards. Now this is what I'm afraid of. There's more chickens gonna sit on the door side. This is what I was afraid of. That's probably why I put the door in the front. Yeah, you're standing on it. You weigh what, 60 pounds? Yeah, maybe 10 chickens though. This is gonna be maxed out at like 20-ish, 30-ish. So hopefully there'll be enough sitting in the back. It won't topple. Hopefully they won't— them all coming out at once won't flip it. How much does it take? Take a lot of weight to do that.

Oh, it's also— no, there's no leverage. There's no leverage. There's no leverage. The grass will stop it.

Okay. All right, well, we'll see. Time will tell. This is a— this is a big old experiment. All right, it's holding up to Josiah crawling in.

Not to me crawling in, but if you go too, watch.

Yeah.

It leveraged.

So how much do you weigh? See, see, it's really easy to say, uh, and to think, you know, we got these ideas, do this and that, and they may seem good, but until you practice them, you can't be 100% sure. But I'm hoping this works. It does get the door out of this. I didn't like that the chickens had to jump up over that handle. Hey, look, it's holding them right there. It's on both those boards right there, and it's not like everybody's gonna get on this ramp at once, so I think it'll work. We can also set this end on the uphill. Hey, you're back from your appointment.

Yes.

How was it?

It was great. It wasn't bad at all.

Teddy, Teddy's a little excited. Good job.

That's a good boy.

All right, what do you think, Rebecca? It's ready to go.

Let's put it out in the field.

Yeah, let's field test it. There's nothing like field testing. No, we can have all that is we want in our heads, but it doesn't mean anything until we put it out in the field. Well, good job everybody! I can't believe we pulled that off. Really hard. So it put too much pressure on it, I think, to pull up this crazy bank. Okay, so we're gonna walk it down. Oh look, one gave us an egg! Here, come on, you confused little gals. I'm so sorry. Let's get your— let's get you your house back. Put it on the downhill side. There's no way they're gonna flip this. All right, there you go, guys. Sorry for taking your house for an hour and a half. That ain't flipping, huh?

See, I told the ground, it's gonna take a lot of weight.

Look, they're coming in and out much more freely. I'm happy about that. I really hope it works. I think death, certainly when there's a hill, putting that up— I'm really happy with this design. I couldn't be, I couldn't be any happier. Spread away, guys, spread away. There's only one more modification I think I want to do, and that's add perches every 6 inches. I think we can put a lot more chickens in there, honestly. Currently they're every 12 inches. Uh, but I think that would maybe let them spread out in a diagonal type fashion if it gets crowded. Yeah, that won't be very hard. Okay, let's go, guys. Teddy not coming? I guess not. Uh, we'll call his bluff. There he comes. Good work, everyone. Nice.

I built it.

That's cool. And just like that, Jonah's gone. He might have lasted a couple of minutes. And look who's back. I don't know if it's a personality thing or a girl-boy thing, but you got it, honey. You got the endurance, everyday same kind of chore kind of ability. Jonah might be able to whip out a stool, but you can milk a cow every day. All right, this is the advantage of waiting to milk. Look, 2 gallons plus probably almost another gallon.

Okay.

She's on the phone with our local internet provider. It's been out since we had that power outage last night, the lightning. Hopefully she can get that fixed because, well, the internet is—

Is it black?

I'd say very critical for our business. The YouTube thing, the member area thing.

So It's definitely due to the lightning. Most likely, he said, since that's when—

it's not our router got busted?

No, so he thinks it's this thing. All right, this thing, because he had me get a different cable to try it, and that seems to be where it's tracing back to. Okay, which he said that it's common for lightning to mess with that.

Okay, the bad news is Because of the subscript, I'm on a subscription editing service for my editing. I can't, I can't pull up the editing. I can't write. What can I do, Beck?

You can write.

I'll just sit down. Yeah, I'm not writing notes, I guess, because normally I write in Google, uh, Docs.

You can see my house when I'm done.

I can't have tea. Well, this is one thing you can do without the internet. No, draw a Pretty shawl.

Cutesy cute.

That's for her front yard there. The concept is trimmed out windows. That'll be wire mesh, hardware cloth, flower boxes, arched roof with ventilation window up top. You gonna make me do a circle window over here?

No, no, that's a wreath.

Oh, wreath.

Okay, I'm just gonna hang a wreath.

All right, well, I mean, I think the big challenge is hinging a roof there, but I think we can do it. Well, we got the internet going. The Wi-Fi is not going now, so it's like, it's like it busted our internet radio and our, um, our Wi-Fi router. I've got a cable in directly to the internet. The problem is we get these GRS Eco Wirelesses They're like low EMF from the Netherlands. So we're just gonna get a temp one like at Best Buy and go ahead and order maybe 2 of those in case this happens again. Jenna's standing in to edit for me for a little bit. Oh! That's pretty good. You did a flashback to the lightning.

That's pretty good.

If you want to fix it up and make it look better, you can.

I like that. I like that you did that. All right, Teddy, I'm done editing. Let's go. Come on, Bacon. We're hunting Mr. Brown's shoes. No surprise. Hey, we'll find them. I'm gonna help you find them. Hey, what was wrong with the ones inside? Let's see if he'll say it. Boring, boring. Those shoes, they're apparently boring, and I don't know what— why you can't wear the Keens. You're just gonna hang with the kitty? I'm gonna let you pick. You have Keens or your boring shoes. Or hang out with the kitty a little bit. Maybe make you feel a little better. He's a little grumpy, but don't we all get a little grumpy every once in a while? I'm almost an hour late doing chores. Thankfully Jonah's started. Maybe we can catch up. I see Flossie's got out. We got to get her back in and get this fence hot. I'm walking ahead to get Flossie, and I realize where I want to put the cows today, they must have already snuck in here. Because it's pretty much eaten down. I set that line down so they can get across, join Flossy. Mucho grass right there, not so much here, so we're moving them on. I was hoping to make this a 2-day paddock. This only has to be 1 day. It's only a 1-day paddock. Uh, we're gonna have to put more nets up for the sheep. I got some more nets. Sure enough, we're gonna need more, maybe 2, 3. Let's do it, we're running out of time. All right, it's that time. We're gonna move the sheep. Pretty big move. Uh, we're coming down the lane from way over there. It's our second biggest move. Down the lane, up across the they're running behind the old original farmhouse. Look, they think we got them some food or something. Chickshaw is definitely staying upright. Mama's home just in time for the move. Here's what we got to do, guys. We gotta herd the sheep back there so that none of them run back this way and not in the lane. Lily, push them this way. You got to push them all this way. Moose is in the way. Is that a surprise? Keep them coming out this way, Lily. I was afraid of this right there. This is bad. That one is just gonna bust through the fence. This is not good. I'm trying to get him back. Josiah's bringing the other ones back. We don't want her to learn that she can jump this fence. There we go, there we go. See if you can bring them back, Josiah. Good. Good, here we go. All right, okay, here we go. There we go, everybody's together now. They can go out. Okay, walk them. We did it and nobody jumped through a fence. All right, they've passed Josiah. All right, Beauty took over way out there. They did it and we didn't even put a lane up in front of our house. She's running across. Across the street leading them. All right, I got my shawl in. Yeah, there it goes. Okay. All right, bye. It's working, but there's something hitting it.

There's a tree on it.

Are you serious?

Yeah, it like leaned it onto it and you couldn't get it off. I didn't even try.

That's it then. That's a big old tree. We got to put the gate down before that tree then, and then it won't travel through there. Shoot, there's chickens in Mama's garden way over there in the potatoes. Just when we thought we could eat. Get that guy in. Oh, there's a bunch out. Something happened. We got, we got one really elusive rooster. Here we go, you guys got him now. You got him now. There we go. Jonah, you're the hero. All right, is that everybody? Should be. Okay, BJ stayed supper. Jonah's working on his He's making a movie on excavators. You getting that watermelon, Josiah? Grandma's cut us up some watermelon. That's right. Oh boy.

This is my grandma's.

Looks delicious. Any one you want.