Oh Trish I wish I'd read your post before dark. We made an awesome little coop using a camper topper. In fact we are looking for more of them on the cheap so we can make some more little houses. At first I had it sitting on saw horses and strung netting scraps around the bottom to enclose it. That was warm weather. Then I put straw bales around the outside to cut the wind. Finally we made premade sides, screwed them together and just set the camper on top. It really doesn't look bad at all. Of course it has no floor but that would be easy to do if we wanted. I just cut a few 2X 4's the width of the shell and laid them on the inside ridge across it so the chickens have roosts.
I'll try to remember to get some pictures tomorrow if I don't forget. I have a group of chickens that sleep in there and Marshmallow goes in there to take naps or get out of the weather as well. Of course on cold days we have the dog and chickens both snuggled together.
This chicken ghetto had huge open gaps along the bottom because the bottom outside boards were rotted out. That is what took so long getting it ready. We put new pieces of OSB along the bottom and up the wall a few inches to close it all in and strengthen the walls. I noticed another trailer a distant cousin of mine has sitting on the back of his property. I've been thinking about asking him about it. It is much newer than this one. Maybe 60's -70's. This one was like a 1954 model. I really wanted to get this back down to just the aluminum so it looked more like a streamline but it was a lot harder to get that old paint to come off than I thought. When I bought this one it was full to about 1 foot deep in pack rat nests on the floor and in all the cabinets and every crevice. That's why everything got torn out. It was nasty. I paid $150 for it cause the guy was trying to get money for scrap metal. But my intent all along was to make a chicken house out of it. It is 16 feet long (13 inside) so it has quite a bit of space. If I bought another one in as poor shape I'd probably harvest the windows out of it and use them elsewhere.
It at least is a place to grow the chickens and they have lots of room around it and under it to dig in the dirt.
I'll try to remember to get some pictures tomorrow if I don't forget. I have a group of chickens that sleep in there and Marshmallow goes in there to take naps or get out of the weather as well. Of course on cold days we have the dog and chickens both snuggled together.
This chicken ghetto had huge open gaps along the bottom because the bottom outside boards were rotted out. That is what took so long getting it ready. We put new pieces of OSB along the bottom and up the wall a few inches to close it all in and strengthen the walls. I noticed another trailer a distant cousin of mine has sitting on the back of his property. I've been thinking about asking him about it. It is much newer than this one. Maybe 60's -70's. This one was like a 1954 model. I really wanted to get this back down to just the aluminum so it looked more like a streamline but it was a lot harder to get that old paint to come off than I thought. When I bought this one it was full to about 1 foot deep in pack rat nests on the floor and in all the cabinets and every crevice. That's why everything got torn out. It was nasty. I paid $150 for it cause the guy was trying to get money for scrap metal. But my intent all along was to make a chicken house out of it. It is 16 feet long (13 inside) so it has quite a bit of space. If I bought another one in as poor shape I'd probably harvest the windows out of it and use them elsewhere.
It at least is a place to grow the chickens and they have lots of room around it and under it to dig in the dirt.
