Mobile Duck Coop
I designed and built this mobile duck coop for a farm I was working on in fall 2022. After working with the ducks and their old coop for 5 months previously I had a good idea of what some of the challenges were and the main problems to solve. I designed and proposed a few different ideas to the team and ultimately decided on a building a mobile trailer style coop from scratch.
The old coop I was replacing. It was a good coop for a long time but had some issues and was due for replacement. The tongue had a little storage space for food, water, and bedding but it wasn't enough.
It was tall and wide making it difficult to navigate through the orchards where the ducks would stay. But the inside was also small and messy making it a problem to get inside to clean and collect eggs.
An early rendering of the idea for the new coop. I increased the size of the tongue storage area, and proposed building a shorter narrower coop for easy maneuverability through the orchards. This combined with a roll away tarp for a roof meant that when cleaning and gathering eggs you could quickly roll up the tarp exposing the entire inside for easy access and maximum sunlight.
Since this design was pretty simple I proposed building a trailer frame from scratch and attaching an axle instead of trying to retrofit an existing trailer. It made things more customizable and cheaper. Here is the raw steel material.
Trailer frame taking shape.
All welded up and ready for paint.
All painted and wood door panels installed.
Here it is with the tarp roof rolled up. The ramp also folds up for transport.
The tongue storage size is significantly bigger.
