Build Your Own Eggmobile

Using scrap materials to build a predator proof our flock.

This summer we were starting to have a terrible time with predators taking our chicks and chickens. At one point they had broken into our brooder and killed all of our chicks. We probably lost about 1/3 of our flock to racoons.

At night, I would sit on my Ikea couch with the window looking towards the coop open. Every 10-15 minutes I would shine my flashlight and look for the beady little eyes of my enemy Mr. Racoon. Then I would press pause on the Roku, grab my .22 caliber rifle, and shoot out the living room window. Then I would go back to rewatching The West Wing.

I spent much of my spring and early summer this way. Then we decided it was time to build something a little more predator proof. Thus, the the plans for the eggmobile, or as we call ours the Winnie-Eggo, was hatched.

This was a very fun build for us. We decided to try to spend as little money as possible and instead use scrap items from the farm.

The wagon itself was an old gravity wagon that had rusted away, but the running gear was still in good shape. We have a stack of old random wood from projects gone by and were able to find just enough to frame out Winnie. I made the walls a full 8 feet tall so we wouldn’t have any problems having to duck our head to climb in to get eggs or clean out the coop. Some old tin for the roof, and we had a stack of the black wood material for the sides. This material used to be decking on an old Great Dane trailer. It was sure heavy, but it got the job done.

One detail I especially like about Winnie, is that the floor boards have a 1 1/4 gap between them. This was designed so that the birds would walk on the floor and any chicken do-do would fall to the dirt to the ground below. Hypothetically, we could park Winnie in our garden spot over the winter and it could be fertilizing the ground with no manual movement on our part.

The kids had a blast working on this project. It only took us 2 days and the only money we had was about $40 in hardware cloth and Romex staples to hold them up.

Some ideas for making Winnie even better are:

• Installing an automatic door.

• Adding on stairs to easily climb up into it.

• Building an outside access to gather eggs.

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