For two funny chicken stories, go to our Farm Journal, click on January 2012 in the archive column and read, "Margie's Chicken Observation" and "Margie's Chicken Intervention."  

Below you will find pictures of our second egg-mobile.  We used the frame of a 16 foot utility trailer.  With a little modifying we turned it into a 20 footer ready for the coop.  We then used our own pine to frame it and salvaged some metal roofing from a garage we tore down last year.  The floor is made of mesh panels so the manure will fall through to the ground.  The nesting boxes are almost finished, but still need a little work.  I finished it just in time to get the 200 layers out of the yard before our Fourth of July picnic. 

The beginning.

Nesting Boxes. I still need to add a few touches, but they have already started to use them.

They love being out in the new grass!

GO TO BED! This picture is taken at about 9:30 pm. All the chickens have not figured out to go inside to sleep yet.

On the left is a picture of the front of the chicken coop before it was finished.  We used plant flats to serve for the bottom of the nesting boxes and now that the coop is finished, some hens have already been using them for laying their eggs even before they have moved in.  They are covered with hinged doors that lift up to retrieve the eggs without trying to squeeze our way into the mobile coop.  The wagon is so heavy it will be moved by tractor from pasture to pasture.  The floor is a series of grates (like in the "chicken intervention pictures", so all of the manure falls right through the floor and onto the ground for fertilizer.  The right picture is the finished coop.  As you can see our son is "being a chicken."  One of the two doors to the nesting boxes is open to see inside.  The chickens have shown lots of interest in the coop already and thus far have used it as a playground.   

Multiple times during the day the chickens come to the doors and peck at the glass. They generally want in the house and try to follow us when we come in from being outside.

Nothing is safe from the chickens...what's yours is theirs.

"Can the dogs come out and play?"

The dogs are not fazed by the chickens, they live together in harmony.

 New Layers and pictures from our farm journal titled"Chicken Intervention"

Notice the 'x' on the one egg and the other is the newly laid egg. Intervention a success!

This is just one half of the hoop house. The grated panels are where the chickens roost. It is quite toasty in here in the winter as this is just like a greenhouse. The nesting boxes are behind me.

Additional intervention needed...

Big Chickens

Enjoying a snack (a strawberry).

We have enough nesting boxes for each hen(and some), but as you can see, they favor two of them.

Our next set of hens are already on the move and growing fast. These 100 hens will be ready to lay in about 5 months.

Scared they were missing out on something, the girls came running.