I just posted a video of us making the shelter (all the footage I had of it, which was less than I would like) on my channel is you want to check it out.
Thank you so much sharing the mesh for the bottom as a suggestion!!! I've been looking at too many videos to get ideas and not a single person shared that idea but it makes perfect sense!!! What I don't understand is how your chickens aren't just flying out of the perimeter you have set up for them, mine love to fly out and end up getting eaten by predators all the time.
The only time I had issues with chickens getting out of the net was when I put in a new group of young hens. They were small enough to squeeze through the electric netting, and they would not assimilate to the rest of the flock, so they just walked around the perimeter, and slipped through the fence. I just make sure they never run out of water or food long enough for them to want to get outside of the electric netting to find those things. Also, another factor may be that we clipped their wings when we transitioned them into the eggmobile. This made it so that if they did try to jump out of the netting, they would just tumble.
Really like the rollaway design. Was talking to someone about pens and they mentioned that design. They are currently designing a place for about 100 quail. Diffrent scale to me (want about 6-10 chickens). Its good to design lower maintance and chore costs at the begining though.
I agree. If you designed it right, you could make a mi Ike shelter that holds enough feed and water to keep 10 chickens fed and watered for weeks before you would have to resupply.
Brilliant design! Hope to build my own too. Suggestions: maybe try: 1. Roof guttering for rainwater harvesting piped to a filter and thier watertank. 2. Egg tray filled with water which is super cooled by a 12v cermaic Peltier module with water temperature relay switch, powered by solar w/ battery. Eggs stay refrigerated and cleaned by water. 3. Automatic gate powered by solar and old 12v car battery. Either 12v timer or there's more advanced WiFi programmable relay switches, like "Shelly Cloud", which you can power from the solar w/ battery and configure using a wifi hotspot from your phone. Later you could deploy 12v solar wifi or 3g/4g cameras. The purpose being to reduce your visits to the tractor and egg collections done once per week as they sit at water cooled at 5°c. Lookup Peltier water cooled CPU kits. I've successfully run one on a 200watt solar panel achieved 5°c water piped into an insulateded cooler box. Multiple Peltiers with fans, bigger solar panel, is more cooling.
This sounds so complicated I’m bound to mess it up if I tried. One thing I have realized since making this video, is that I should get some sort of automated system that closes the chickens out of the nest box at night. More specifically, I could manually close them out of the nest box in the evening/early afternoon when I collect eggs, but I would want some sort of automated system to let them into the nest box early in the morning. They sleep in the nest box and manure on the mats, making the eggs dirty. also, sometimes The eggs get caught on their manure, so they have a chance to pack the eggs and break the shelves. It’s all quite messy sometimes. I’ve got a few ideas on how I could do it.
@@hdezoo if not already, i hear your roosts need to be higher than your chicken nesting boxes as they choose the highest safest point. I can see night nest box exclusion being a key problem. I'll research about to see what simpler systems can be developed.
@@hdezoo sorry for the excess detail causing confusion. I reckon to simplify... start with a couple of 200watt solar panels on the roof, with PVC guttering, and harvest the Rainwater to your onboard water tank. Put inline 40um (micron) filter in the pipe and it should be fine to drink even for humans.
Great video, I love the design of your homemade rollaway nest box. I wish I had that set up on my property. Some thing I’m looking forward to making. Your eggs look huge and amazing!!!😱😍😍 I couldn’t help but notice they’re different shades of brown but all really great size 😊 if you don’t mind me asking which chicken breeds do you keep on your farm?
The hens were sleeping in the nest box because they like to roost as high as they can get. Since they have no roost bars, the highest location is the nest box.
I thing you’re right. But currently, they’ve stopped doing it altogether. This is a different group of birds, so maybe it was a learned behavior that the old group had? If this group starts roosting in the next box, I’ll put up some roost poles at a higher level and see if that helps.
thanks god i found this video.this is the only missing piece for me to start up building my ready to lay egg duck production.i will adopt this one .because ducks are messy when they want to lay eggs.even thou they dont naturally mess with their eggs like chicken.the only thing i am concern of is to produce more clean eggs in the future for salted egg production and encubation
I wonder if putting the nest box lower than the perches would discourage them from getting in there at night? I heard somewhere that they like to be as high as they can be while sleeping, great nest box!
I want to do an external rollaway but I need to come up with someway to insulate it for Canadian winters. The lid gets awfully thick with two layers a wood and 2” of rigid insulation. Frozen eggs are not good.
Great content, thank you for sharing the knowledge and promoting animal/entertainment friendly farming. Whuld love same kind videos about other livestock and other parts of the farm. New subscriber here
Why are some customers such crybabies about there’s a mark on the egg, they’re like oh my God there’s something wrong with it. I suppose they want the Kim Kardashian of eggs right?
Does this work if you live in a cold climate? I am worried about the exterior design causing the eggs to freeze in winter. I live in the Northern Midwest of the US if that helps.
We moved the hens into a deep bedded chicken coupe once the snow started falling. We will be puting them out on pasture here in Michigan northern Michigan in a few weeks.
I love your solución to the roll away nest boxes. You get a good amount of eggs. Question.. what’s the inclination you had to give the bottom board for your eggs to roll out nicely without breaking. I’m building a coop and I’d love to include the roll out option. Thanks hopefully I get an answer 🫰
I free range my hens. I put the nest box in the field near their coop. Auto door opens at 6:30 am. Closes at dark. They all go in during the night. Anyone have thoughts about doing it this way. I couldnot find anyone talking about just keeping the egg box separate from the sleeping quarters.
So many people want to find ways not to do the work that is required to take care of animals, waking up early to feed and collect eggs is whats required then that’s what’s needs to be done
