50 CHICKEN chicken tractor!! Pics and Progress!

[colburg]

Wow! Looking great! As far as your question regarding how foxes and coon get through chicken wire: If they can't rip it off they chew through it. Even welded wire if it's not a heavy enough guage. I made the mistake of going with a cheaper welded wire on my brand new fox pen and my one female had grasped the wired between her teeth and set back until the welds popped. She was out within minutes. I quickly upgraded to some heavier wire.

My first thought is fox pen? Why is she trying to keep foxes in? WOW! Do you raise foxes? And then I think to myself, what's the plural of fox? Foxes just doesn't sound right for some reason. Foxi, Foxen, Fox? Google says it's foxes, and they're always right aren't they?

Anyway, I never would have thought of them chewing through the wire, and sure not breaking the welds on the welded wire. Thanks for answering my question.

 

[perchie.girl]

LOL I looked at the pictures before I read the captions.... You have a great start and I spotted the flaw to the brace.... I love the fact that you took the positive of the whole process.

A simple solution would be to cut a slot in the wheel plate to pass past the brace. Quarter inch thick steel is VERY strong in shear no matter how old it is.

Couple of thoughts:

You can add in a mechanism that will double your wifes strength by using a linkage.

If this is to be pulled by a tractor how about using the tractor to lift the coop in order to swing the wheels in place.

deb

 

[colburg]

OOOOhhh Perchie!!! You did it now. Got me started thinking and now I'm gonna have to build it and if it doesn't work...It's all your fault. JK.

Thanks for the great idea. I actually calculate better leverage than before. It uses more material though. I guess we'll find out.

 

[colburg]

You are awesome and a good writer!

Thanks debir. Never considered myself much of a writer(I have the high school and college transcripts to prove it), just a goofball that likes to work with his hands.

 

[suki'smom]

My first thought is fox pen?  Why is she trying to keep foxes in?  WOW! Do you raise foxes?  And then I think to myself, what's the plural of fox? Foxes just doesn't sound right for some reason.  Foxi, Foxen, Fox?   Google says it's foxes, and they're always right aren't they?

Anyway, I never would have thought of them chewing through the wire, and sure not breaking the welds on the welded wire.  Thanks for answering my question.

Yep I raise foxes, but dont tell anybody....this is a chicken forum don't ya know LOL

 

[colburg]

Woohoo!!!

In order to install the wheels with the new method, I needed to lift the rear end of the tractor, chicken tractor that is. The whole rear end lifted up perfectly and there wasn't the slightest bend in the side boards. Yes, the bucket on my tractor slowly leaks down. This was about 2 hours after the initial lift and it was starting to crush the top. Wellll, not really crush, just bending, but not enough to do any damage.



Here's Swish Swish testing the chicken wire. We have no idea where our 3 year old came up with the name "Swish Swish". We have another cat named Jengo. My brother-in-law's kids had named it J-I-Goe. It promptly got switched to Jengo.


The cross board under the coop needs to be notched out for the pipe to lay under, but my circular saw won't fit in there. I don't have a jig saw, so I'm starting to think, "Hammer and Chisel." Then remember, HEEEEYYY, I have the jigsaw I accidentally won at an auction. Have you ever gone to an auction? Ever get confused as to what the bidding is on and not know it? I was once bidding on a generator. I was really surprised that the bidding started at $5. But, me and another guy started bidding it up and he quit at $22.50. Hey, why isn't anyone else bidding? The generator runs. It's a $500 generator new. "Going once, twice, SOOooold!!!" Wow, how did that happen. a $500 generator for $22.50? Sweeeet! "Up next for bidding is this very fine running generator. Bidding will start at $250." Wait!! What was I bidding on? What did I just win? There's too much crap in the pile to figure it out by just looking. Nonchalantly walk over to the worker with the notepad marking down who won what. "Hey, what was the item number of the previous item?" sounded much better than "What the hell did I just win?". Wait until the crowd has moved away, walk over and find the item. It's a sawhorse with a jigsaw bolted upside down underneath with the blade installed backards sticking up through the sawhorse. Pay for crappy item and leave ****** at myself and store it where I'll forget about that moment of idiocy.

The blade broke after about 2" of cutting. %^(^&%(##@$^*( I finally have a use for this thing and it breaks. I remember that I have a tiny hacksaw with itty bitty blades and find it to see if I can modify the blade to work in the jigsaw. Hey, what's this hanging behind the hacksaw? A 24 pack of jigsaw blades? When did I buy these? Oh well, now I'm happy and I can break many blades and get the job done.

Actually, I only needed one of them to get the job done. Here it is. After much pain and suffering and joy, it's just right.





I managed to salvage most of the previous material. God bless the man that came up with cut-off blades for angle grinders. Cut some old welds here, weld a few new pieces of iron there.


The little piece slips over the short end of the bar in the pic above. The long piece slips over the long end.



There's about 3" of the bar sticking out of the side of the board. Sorry I didn't get a better picture of the setup before I let the whole thing down. I couldn't leave the bucket over the coop all night or it WOULD get crushed and this whole tiny piece of the project had already taken too long, so I was in a hurry. I'll get a better pic next time it gets lifted all the way up.


This setup should be a whole lot more stable than the other. No unnecessary torque on the 2x8's. See? Stronger, Better, not so torquey. The arms for lifting haven't been done yet. It was getting too late and design transformations keep rattling around in my head.


Actually, I cam up with this idea this morning. Why not use a block and tackle? It'll have to be homemade cause I'm not shelling out $400+ for a 3 pulley block and tackle.

The Three Fold Purchase setup allows 6 times the amount of force applied to be lifted. Add that to a lever arm that's twice the distance fromt the bottom of the wheel to the center of the pivot arm, or about 46" lever arm and that's a leveraging of about 12 times the actuall force required to lift it.



Anyways, lots of OT stuff in this post. Oh well. We'll see how the pulleys work out this evening.

 

[perchie.girl]

Excellent

I bought a block and tackle for a project once at Harbor Freight. Cost about ten or twelve bucks. each pulley had two sheaves in it and it was good for about 400 lbs.

example:
http://www.harborfreight.com/gambrel-and-pulley-hoist-99758.html

and you can order off the internet if you dont have a harbor freight locally.

deb

 

[colburg]

Excellent

I bought a block and tackle for a project once at Harbor Freight. Cost about ten or twelve bucks. each pulley had two sheaves in it and it was good for about 400 lbs.

example:
http://www.harborfreight.com/gambrel-and-pulley-hoist-99758.html

and you can order off the internet if you dont have a harbor freight locally.

deb

Wow, that's pretty cheap and just about what I was looking for, but the closest Harbor Frieght is about 2-1/2 hours away and I on't wanna wait 4 days for shipping. I think it'll be ok to build one, or at least try. I have to kill some time before a Doc appt this afternoon so maybe I'll check out Lowe's. Doubt I'll find anything though. The Lowe's here sucks. They don't have self-clamping air chucks, the largest bolt and nut they carry is 5/8", they don't have 7/16", no 4-1/2" angle grinders, they DON'T even carry replacement blades for the chop saw I bought there. Had to get it online.

Anyway, thanks for the tip.

 

[perchie.girl]

LOL.... 6.99 and it ships in 24 hours.... just sayin.

Yep Lowes has a bunch of dufusses here. The nearest Tractor supply is a four hour drive to Bakersfield CA. Feed stores here sell cattle panels for 125.00.

They do have blocks and tackles at my Lowes in the rope section. I setup Pully draft for hitching my horse's traces to the forecart. (eliminating a single tree experimental project)

San Diego is not farming country so obtaining Draft horse related supplies gives me fits. So I have had to innovate. Couldnt find Conways for my harness thickness So I wound up using stainless steel Aircraft screws and lock nuts and washers. Looked good too. Sigh lost it all in the Cedar fire.

I have since found a source thank goodness a harness maker hiding in a leather shop who repaired the Budweiser Clydesdale harnesses when they were here at Sea World.

But I digress.

deb

 

[colburg]

*&^%F#@^%*@%# What kind of idiot tries to build his own pullies? Actually, once I came up with a design and started building I only gave them about a 70% chance of working. Turns out I was a little off on the estimate.

It wa s apretty simple design, just not a very good one. A 1" diameter pipe, some 1.25" pvc, some 1" washers, and a couple of brackets to attach it with.







So, what happened? With 8 wraps, why couldn't I lift it? because the PVC would just bind on the pipe and not turn. All the rope was doing was slipping over the PVC, which isn't very frictionless.

I do blame the failure of this idea on the devil though. While walking back to the scrap metal pile behind the shop, I pooped in my panties a little bit. The familiar sound of rattles was coming from somewhere and I didn't know where. I found Jengo, one of our cats, having a staring contest with a 4' rattler(sitting only 2' away from him) in a mesquite bush just a couple of feet off the road I was walking on. Of course, yelling at them didn't phase them. It was a staring contest after all. Who says fat boys can't sprint? I ran to the truck, grabbed the 12ga, and scared the holy bajeebus outta that cat when I shot the snake.







And to think, I actually took a day off of work for all this.