Our eggmobile

[The Storyteller]

A local sustainable farmer and friend of mine is moving east to take over a Joel Salatin rental farm and basically become a subcontractor to Joel. As a former apprentice, he is very knowledgeable about sustainable agriculture. He built the below "eggmobile" last spring from a cotton trailer. It has a capacity of 400 laying hens. There is a water system both inside and out, fed by two internal 50 gallon drums. There are 80 nest boxes, feeders, and storage bins for about 600 pounds of feed. The concept: park it on pasture, open it up during the day, and lock it up at night, move it when the birds need new pasture. The floors are slated and covered in chicken wire so the poo falls through the floor to pasture below to fertilize your pasture, making the thing easy to clean.

We bought it yesterday. We decided it was time to get serious about farming, or get out. We got serious.

Right now, we only have 80 hens, but hope to expand into several hundred over the next couple of years. We will sell eggs from 100% pastured, free range hens.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/image/id/6141044/width/900/height/600/flags/LL

[chanterelle]

Very nice ! What breed of chickens have you selected and how much land do you have to use?
Do you have a farm background or have to learned along the way?

[The Storyteller]

We like Cuckoo Marans and Rhode Island Reds, with the occasional easter egger thrown in for fun. I grew up around agriculture, and we lived on a small farm when very young, and I worked on dairies in my youth, but my adult life has been spent in other endeavors. Mom raised chickens when I was very young, and we took it up about 3 years ago.

But basically, we've picked it up along the way.

[Mrs-M]

What a great idea! Talk about simplifying matters...

[CathyA]

Interesting. I can't imagine 400 hens in there though. Inside a coop, the very minimum space per chicken should be 3-4 sq ft.
Be very careful with that floor. Predators can easily get through slats and chicken wire. And the chicken wire could give the hens bumblefoot.
Forgive me if you already know how to care for chickens.
I would love to free-range my hens, but they'd be dead in a day. Good luck to you!
(Looks like you could even pull them along on any of your vacations) :)

[The Storyteller]

Cathy, that applies if they live in the coop. They don't. They only sleep there. Also, during the day they also use underneath for shelter. But then, I'm not going to run 400, at least any time soon.

And with four good Great Pyrs and portable electric poultry netting, I don't worry about predators.

But thanks for the advice. :)

[The Storyteller]

I should add that I would have thought fewer, but the guy I bought it from said he was running 400 in there last summer.

[leslieann]

that is so cool! I would love to buy your eggs! sorry that you are too far away. Best of everything in this endeavour.

[CathyA]

Sounds good Storyteller! Best of luck to you.
I still think you should hook it up to your truck when you go on vacations so you never have to be apart! :)
Keep us posted on your progress.

[The Storyteller]

UPDATE:
Brought my wagon home last weekend and immediately put my hens in it. I have never seen them so calm and contented. Egg production is way up as a result. In fact, I now have more eggs than customers for the first time since we started selling eggs. I'm keeping them locked in for a week or two so they can begin to think of it as their home before I start opening it during the day. Then they will go in at night without fail. Future additions should fall right in line, since chickens tend to be followers.

I did find one predator 50 yards outside their home this morning, though. He never made it inside.

I love my dogs.

[CathyA]

I'm envious! My hens are all in henopause! What kind of predator did you have? I don't think mine would last a day outside their run..........coons, weasel, hawks, owls, stray dogs, cats.........
I'm glad your dogs are good guardians. Have fun!

[The Storyteller]

UPDATE:

I let the hens out and they have gravitated to using it as their night time home, just as we hoped. Watering and feeding are much easier. There seems to be plenty of space, and the birds still remain very calm. I am now ready to start building up our flock in preparation for the farmers market starting in April. My goal is 250 by mid summer.

We are also ordering our meat birds for the market very soon, but that's for another thread.

[ctg492]

All sounds interesting. How much profit do you think you will generate after all investments including feed? How long till you see a profit? I wish you luck! I ask as I have thought about small time egg production and sales many times. Then I go and buy mine from the lady down the road for $1.50 a dozen....I could never invest/feed and market for that price :confused:

[The Storyteller]

The eggs will tide me at the market while I sell meat birds for $3.50 a pound. That is where I will make my profit.

I sell my eggs for $3 to $4 a dozen. Even most home growers don't raise their birds unmedicated and on pasture.

ETA
Because I have my feed milled locally, I spend about a third what other growers do, plus they get much of their nutrition from pasture.

[ctg492]

good plan

[Hollywood]

Do you have any pictures of the inside of the coop? Showing how the nesting, roost, and the feeding system is set up? I am in the process of building mine right now and any more info would be greatly appreciated!

[The Storyteller]

Sure, I will try to get some uploaded in the next day or so.

There are no roosts, however. The slats in the floor sort of work for that.

[iris lily]

We participated in an "Urban Sustainability Tour" that featured city gardens with veg, fruit, chickens, etc. Our garden was on tour because DH has a big (by city standards) vegetable garden and 15+ fruite trees. Anyway, my f reind and I stopped at all of the places that had chickens. She really likes chickens, and so I thought about getting two. It occurred to me that I could try chickens and if that really didn't work for us that, unlike dogs and cats, we could decide to just eat them. Chickens are not a lifetime committment, that's a new thought.

[The Storyteller]

Just so you know, chickens are the gateway drug to animal husbandry. Next thing you know you will have goats, rabbits, mini-cows and all sorts of critters.

I mentioned earlier our goal was 250 layers by summer. We have modified that a bit. Tomorrow I pick up 40+ hens which will put us right around 150 layers. With those, we might be able to last past 9:30 before running out of eggs at the farmers market. More and more people are signing up for deliveries during the week. We will sell or stew all these birds before next February, when we expect our new pullets to mature.

We really do have a distinctive product. There are three other egg sellers at the market, but they are all confinement. We are the only ones who raise on pasture, which gives the eggs that deep orange color and well defined whites. And according to one customer, that makes ours "the egg of choice".

Thinking about putting that on our marketing.

[The Storyteller]

So, I went to pick up my 40 layers this morning, and by the time we were done counting, it turns out to be 32. "Huh", he says. "Guess we lost more to predation than we thought". I had to laugh. When you have a couple dozen birds, you notice every single loss. When you have several hundred, it gets hard to keep count.

Anyway, two got away, so I took home 30, although I paid for 32 anyway. There were 24 RIR, 1 Easter Egger, and 5 Anconas.

Anconas. I don't remember seeing these anywhere, even at auctions, let alone owned any. Supposed to be good layers, second only to Leghorns. And they don't go broody, which is a big plus for me. I swear, this summer every single Marans has gone broody multiple times. That wouldn't be so bad, except they forget which eggs were theirs and they end up in another box, thus ruining multiple eggs.

He promised more for fall.

[The Storyteller]

Pictures, as promised:

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[Selah]

The Storyteller, this is SO cool! Congratulations on pursuing something that will probably benefit everyone, human and non-human...except the unfortunate predators, of course! I wish there was a way to export this whole interesting threads and its pictures, as I have a friend in Israel who works with laying hens on a moshav and would be very interested in this. Thanks again for posting!

[The Storyteller]

Why thank you, Selah. Between you and Gregg, I'm gonna get a big head. :) It is a lot of work and worry, but it has been worth it so far.

Why not just have your friend in Israel sign up for the site and let them read this stuff on their own?

[The Storyteller]

Letting the hens out of the Eggmobile in the morning, my favorite time of the day.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAqmbOsUubk