[shOOter—] and his family are just starting to keep chickens and need a coop in which the hens could roost. He wanted it to be mobile and protective and what is more mobile and protective and the leader of the Transformers? As you can see, his chicken coop is modeled after Optimus Prime.
The cab of the truck serves as the hen-house. It’s made of marine grade plywood held together with glue and galvanized nails. The exhaust stacks, which are made of PVC pipe, are not just decorative. They are chutes for the feed trays to either side of the blue ramp (you can’t really see the trays in this image). To give the chickens a way to stretch their legs he brought his welding skills to bear. The trailer portion of the build is a welded metal frame covered in mesh which provides a rather large exercise yard. Since the habitat is enclosed there’s really no need for an intricate motorized door.
[Thanks James]
I’m having a really hard time with the scale in that photo. Does he have really tiny chickens, or are his potted plants just enormous?
Huge plants, the tires are similar size to the ones on a hand-truck/fridge dolly.
Never had chicken nuggets? :P
The forum in the link says the wheels are 250mm(9.8 inches ~10) in diameter so that makes the cab of the truck around 20″ across the short dimension.
Or you could guestimate based on the size of the hole to the hutch, the trailer is 3x4x9.5 chickens.
If the tires are 25cm, that makes those things in the background more like potted tree plants…
nice job! I want to make one of these feed chutes for my cat, vacation problems solved!
What if it rains and the chutes now act as a route for the water to the food?
He might have to invent some sort of object to block water accelerated vertically by gravity from entering an opening.
you mean like an exhause flapper, like this? http://jaxspotpictures.com/Pics/exhaust-flapper.html
So when Optimus Prime transfoms, do the chickens become processed and mechanically seperated?
Honestly, cool build, especially having your son inside of the cab/coop, it shows the scale nicely.
Please HAD people, read the articles/build write-ups, they are there for a reason.
Very cool build. Wish I had space for such a pen.
THats a small coop – he must have bantam chickens. I know that would be too small for my chickens and I would also have a closable door on the coop…at least where I live. The animals would dig under that pretty quick to get a t the tasty morsels inside.
That being said it does look pretty cool. A PVC cap on the smoke stack and the problem is solved. I actually use a hopper similar to that to distribute crushed eggshells for the chickens to eat.
Cool build. What young boy wouldn’t want that chicken tractor?