I bought this beast of a trailer at auction over the weekend. It's homemade, assembled almost entirely out of angle iron and square tube. It's extremely robust. My intent is to turn this into a mobile chicken coop. I'm going to tear the wood floor out and put in expanded metal mesh or 1/2" hardware cloth if I can't find a decent deal on mesh. For the walls, the simplest thing seems to be to just attach sheets of some siding material from the inside to the frame. Material choices that I'm currently considering include some combination of corrugated metal roofing, corrugated plastic roofing, and double wall corrugated plastic(like the type of stuff that yard signs are made of). The area that we are in tends to get some amount of wind, and the tractor will be spending a decent amount of its time near the ridges of hills. Is there a material that I should be considering that I'm not? I'm concerned with longevity, ease of installation, cost, maintenance, and not getting ripped off in the wind. I'd' also like to figure out some sort of top-hinged window section. It gets hot and humid here during the summer, but we also get summer storms with extremely heavy rainfall, so possible cross ventilation that prevents rain from blowing in seems like a good plan, and it can be closed up for the winter.
Long-term goals are to develop an egg operation. I expect to run a series of perches side to side so when it's on a hill, I only have to level front to back, a large community nest box with removable dividers, and an automatic door built into one of the wood wall areas. I expect to stop the siding where the vertical walls end, cover the top with 1/2" hardware cloth. then put a roof with decent overhangs over the top. I suspect this will give me plenty of ventilation without causing issues with the birds being in the path of breezes during the winter. I'd love input, potential concerns, etc.
Long-term goals are to develop an egg operation. I expect to run a series of perches side to side so when it's on a hill, I only have to level front to back, a large community nest box with removable dividers, and an automatic door built into one of the wood wall areas. I expect to stop the siding where the vertical walls end, cover the top with 1/2" hardware cloth. then put a roof with decent overhangs over the top. I suspect this will give me plenty of ventilation without causing issues with the birds being in the path of breezes during the winter. I'd love input, potential concerns, etc.
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