Haha, a great big tote from
Walmart is what we move ours with. They were initially used during brooding our chicks last spring, but are great for transport too.
I made covers out of half inch hardware cloth. I made my covers so they extend down six inches all the way around the tote. Makes them heavier, so there's no possibility of escape.
Also great for predators. We wrap the whole tote in two bungee cords with hooks on both ends, about a third in from the ends of the totes.
It's a good system, while we had chicks in it, my son surprised a big raccoon who was brazen enough to come on our front porch, and couldn't get the chickens because of the wire and bungee cords.
But he really wanted the chicken dinner, so he dragged the tote to the steps, toppling it down them, but still it held, and no chicken dinners were served that day to the raccoon!
I bought the super deluxe jumbo totes, the biggest they had, 50 gallon, with lids, they're about $20 each. For simple transport, you could just use a drill to quickly cut a bunch of air holes, using the biggest drill bit you have. Obviously that's the end of using the totes for anything else that would need an almost air tight seal.
I moved the good ol' Flying Fortress Chicken Tractor last month. Here's the post.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rtress-tractor-3-miles.1217645/#post-19450754
My birds are full grown now. The roll back wrecker was coming at 10am to move the Fortress, so before dawn, about 6am, I went in the coop while they were still roosting and grabbed them all, and shall we say "toted them".
I put the rooster in first, so he couldn't stir up any trouble, then put six hens in with him, and six more hens in the other tote. It was a little work getting the last two, all the ruckus had gotten em moving. I used an LED light that goes on your head like a sweatband, it even had a red LED which is the setting I used.
I could have probably gotten a couple more in each tote.
Ok, by the time I got the Fortress set up and ready to go, it was 2pm. So the birds had an eight hour layover in the worst airport in the country, my totes! I didn't even try to put food or water in, it was going to just be a bad day all around for them, but they were fine, even after all that. A couple have filed lawsuits, but their lawyers are chicken, so I know I'll beat em in court!
Although the insides of those totes was not for the squeamish, it was Poopsville writ large! And yes there were eggs, remarkably, not even broken, but if you can imagine an egg with a solid 1/8 of really quite stubborn poop, entirely encasing the egg, you're on the right track! I hate waste, but I couldn't even give em to the dog, had to throw them away.
In the end, the adventure ended fine, and nothing a garden hose didn't fix in ten minutes in regard to the totes themselves.
I'm not using my two totes now for anything else, and still have the lids, and bungee cords, they'd probably be a good place to store any extra feed I might have. I know most people use metal trash cans.
With straight metal shears I cut the hardware cloth to form the corners of the covers. Use zip ties to connect the cuts in the hardware cloth that forms the corners of the tote covers.
Dog crates would probably also be great if you have any of those.
