We Built a (mobile) chicken feeder

All homestead builds begin with a rough sketch. It's exciting to take something from our head to reality. Happy day! I'm excited today because we are gonna build a mobile— what are we building? You coming with? Mobile In-N-Out! What do you think? It's coming along nice. Looks fantastic. Office. Oh my gosh. It's starting to feel like a house. My word. Look, they've done the master bedroom too. They're scheduled to get done today on time for the cabinets next week, tile next week in here. Look at the contrast there. Something about it just seems so finished when you see the tile room next to the wood. And downstairs is happening too. Whoa, John has crushed it with with the cork basement floor. It doesn't— this feel like a legit kitchen? Oh, I like the way that cork feels on my feet. It's got some cushion because I'm gonna spend a lot of time standing up down here in this farm kitchen. You guys sense it? All right, let's go work on this project. See y'all at the cabin. We gotta get some supplies over there. So with Rebecca gone, everything's falling on me for this weekend. That includes laundry in the old root cellar. Nice touch with Flossie's head there. Oh yes, it's a pain to do laundry outside in the tiny root cellar. My goodness, this sure beats where my dad had to do laundry where he was a kid. Quite the walk, the nook of that creek. Yeah, did laundry by hand. I'm gonna try to remember that if I want to complain. All right, let's finish getting supplies for this build. We are in need of a move. This was our previous mineral sled. Feeding bins that are in there, they can't get in and bother them, mess them up. This worked out great except the problem was I guess it's even wider than it is longer, and it's supposed to be designed— it's to be pulled behind the chick shop. And then I got to thinking, we have to move your feed and your water. So that was wobbling, being short like that, it was wobbling. Why not make this longer and open here and enough to fit? Let's, let's show. Can you get me a feeder and a water? What if we made a platform wide enough and long enough to carry all three? And it's these— at least a trap, you might even leave them on it. That'd be kind of cool if you could. We'll do a little railing, not a 2x4 railing. This could make a huge difference because right now we're having to move the— when we're out in the pasture with the chick, the chick feeders or the chickshaw, we have to move the chickshaw and then come back and get water and feed. Wouldn't it be great if we could just move the water, feed, and now minerals all at the same time? I believe we got all our wood we're gonna need. The locust— that's locust fern, right? That's gonna be a heck of a platform. The skids, the rails. Now we just gotta clean up. Hey, don't, uh, pile into a pile so we can get it up. Just gonna clean up the shop. Y'all unscrew this. We need to get these legs off. How does that seem, Lily? Um, actually, look, that'd be great. The width of this could come straight out. I don't think it can. It could with this water. The water could fit, feeder could not. Hmm, that'd be outstanding if the bottom rail of this mineral feeder could have just went straight out. I'm gonna have to make it a little wider. All right, here, put that in there. Let's see what happens if we would have to make it wider. That's why we work through this, build these prototypes, and then ultimately smoothify them for you guys. So we'll make that wider. —go with this. We put two 2x4s together for the skids plus a run of plastic decking. Is that bevel? Is that what you call that at the end? And then it'll run on these plastic skids and it slides a little easier. I'm starting to be a hair concerned about weight. Those now 4x4s plus the decking— we got locust decking. Full water is 40 pounds. 20 pounds of feed plus the mineral, you're looking at over 100 pounds. I want this to be something that you can actually pull behind the Chickshaw with 24, 36 chickens. We're gonna make it a little wider just to have— I'm making a bed. You think the chickens could reach? Not chicks. Spaces in between just, just for wasted feed, any chicken manure get on there. So 1-inch slats. We got slats 3 inches apart. Hey Henry, you want to put— want to put the king feeder on there in the water? Let's see if it works. I think it's going to be enough. Watch out. Whoa, that's very generous. Maybe what happens if the chicks fall in? Yeah, hopefully they just reach over. My gut is telling me this is just too wide. We need to have railings here too. It really needs to be like right there. That means I'm taking off all those screws, cutting this down to 17 and a half, and doing it again. This is a lot more secure. I feel a lot better about this. Wow, that's fantastic! It's just snug enough to get that feeder in there. By the way, I filled it up. We put the hood on, we've got the water filled up. We're gonna see how heavy this thing is. We have our minerals in there, we got kelp, aragonite, and grit. Let's see if we can move this thing. Shall we get it out and try it? It's working great. The mini-me has a hook. We can try it. You don't think I can? No. Yeah. Nope. Oh man. All right, I'm, I'm doubting that. That is way too heavy to be pulling behind a Chickshaw by hand. Because then there would be chickens in that chick shawl too. I mean, maybe worth it just to have a unit where you can have minerals, feed, and water in one piece and can be moved all at once. There is benefit to that. Otherwise I'd have 3 contraptions and I'd have to make 3— 2 to 3 trips just to move. I don't know if I like this. They're getting up on it. I don't know, we're gonna have to see how this goes before I put this in Homestead Builds. And one jumps up there Others are eating from the side. That's not a big, big problem as long as they don't turn around and poop. But we did slat it so that if they do, poop's gonna fall through. We're gonna put that mineral feeder to rest for right now to see, just see how the chicks do with it. I guess it's not just a mineral feeder, it's a chick feeder waterer. Building a jump? Yeah, Dustin and Dark Knight are going at it. In my former mountain boarding life I was gonna have a couple of boys, and because my last name is Rhodes, I was gonna call them Dustin and Dirt. We're gonna call them Dusty and Dirty Rhodes. You just have to do it this, this one part. Oh, just this part? And don't step on it. Maybe you should get barefoot. Maybe— hey, get your shoes off. If you get grime on this now and then paper on it, it'll just rub it. When you do box cutting, make sure you don't cut the floor. Work behind us. Fun times now. Fun times. We got some stud muffin from the smoker. If you don't like cheese, you like it well done. Lily made us some fries. We got some cream out here to make some butter later. Henry, what are you into? You miss Mama yet? Once it gets dark, he misses Mama. Is that right? You're a pothead? How's stud muffin tonight? How's stud muffin tonight? Done. Guys night, finally watching Roadhouse. The new Roadhouse, that is. I haven't seen the old house. Should we watch the old house one? I just wanted to see Conor McGregor beat some people up, so. Hey fellas, I'll let you know how it is. We got pizza bites. Okay, you boys ready? I got a tip for for you. Don't let no one get this close. Oh, look who passed out shortly into it. Was it a fun movie? It was a fun movie. Yeah, good to see people beat each other. All right, that was good fun, huh? Yeah. Do you guys like it? Yeah. All right, good escapism. All right, happy day, y'all.