New Aluminum Salatin style pen no dolly required.

Basic Frame....



Forgot to take more pics of frame assembly. Corners from chain link fence material at HD or LOWs. Braces also from same stores. All tubing is 1 3/8 tubing for chain link fence.









Wheel design copied from Jaku with a little modification.  This eliminates the need for a dolly to move the pen.


After pen is moved wheel laid flat and pen rests back on the ground.


Simple pin used to hold wheel in place.


After chicken wire attached






Board to hold door open so I can clean waterer and put trough feeders in and out. First coat of enamel on tubing to make sure it stays cool in the summer.

All that is left is to slap on some CoolSeal on the tin and we start on pen 2. It took about 5 evenings maybe 7 hours total to build entire pen.

I was worried about that with the zip ties. With my other wooden pens it was easy just to staple the wire to the wood. I tried twisting wire around it but that left to many sharp edges. I got the white ties from the auto parts store that were rated for high temps for engine use but I would imagine I will have to replace them at the end of the season with the black ones. Last year in similar pens we keep 90 birds per pen and it worked great. Im basically following Salatins model for  the numbers. Before I tried it and after hearing people complain that that was to many I was worried last year but after raising almost 500 last year that number works well and they are not crowded by any means just people judging without actually raising them that way. The down side is that the pen cost more than wood but in the long run will last for many more years. Last years pen already needs some mending.

CX we are going to try some Freedom Rangers with electric netting and and the shelter from Farmtek.