Sometimes I run across an idea that is just so cool that I’d do almost anything to try it out. A few days ago I was thinking about eggmobiles (portable chicken coops). We hope to have a few cows eventually and Joel Salatin says that an eggmobile is just the thing to follow the cows with; they do such a fine job of sanitizing the pasture that he would use them even without the added benefits of eggs and stewing hens.
When you google "eggmobile," just about the first thing that shows up is this page. The folks at Good Earth Organic Farm figured out the perfect thing for converting into eggmobiles: used cotton trailers. Cotton trailers are designed to store cotton as it is picked and then transport it to the cotton gin. Since their cargo is bulky but lightweight, they are essentially large mesh boxes on a light trailer chassis. And because they have been superseded by newer ways of gathering cotton, there are lots of used ones available (in cotton country, anyway).
Converting a cotton trailer to an eggmobile is a straightforward thing. Just replace the solid floor with a mesh floor (so the manure can drop through), install roosting bars along one side and nesting boxes along the other, and make a couple of ramps so the chickens can enter and exit.
The main obstacle for us is that we aren’t all that close to cotton country. Good Earth Organic Farm is in north central Texas. The closest I’ve found someone selling used cotton trailers is in Louisiana, about 650 miles away. I’ve seen them mentioned as being used in the Memphis area, maybe 350 miles away. But I’m hoping if we head straight south into Alabama or Georgia we can find something within a couple hundred miles.
I will keep my ears and eyes open.
Thanks, Cindy. I’m quite serious about wanting to try this out. If I can find a cotton trailer at a reasonable price within a couple of hundred miles, I’ll be off to fetch it right away.
Check out this egg mobile. Go down to the video opening the chicken bus.
Wow! My Grandfather ran cotton gins. I remember these trailers by the hundreds lined up around the gin yard. I and my cousins played on them as kids. What a clever use for them. My grandparents kept poultry. He had hundreds of potential chicken coops parked near by, and using them this way never occured to anybody.
Well, since the average cotton gin had hundreds of these trailers around them, there could be hundreds of thousands of these available for people to buy and use.
Being from Kansas, I don’t think I’ll find a cotton trailer close by. However, since looking at the picture I am thinking a hay wagon with a hoop house or some sort of shelter built on top would work. Thanks for the idea.
Our homeschool group took a farm tour last week in NW GA to see a grass-fed, raw milk dairy. They also had free range chickens that nested/layed in an old cotton trailer. I had read your post before the tour, so I was a bit familiar with the concept. But when I studied the trailer a bit more at length, I was convinced that you are spot on in trying to track one down. I might be eyeballing one for our homestead as well now that I’ve seen it in action.
Hello, if you found a cotton trailer, were you thinking of towing it home with your own truck? Because that would be illegal and very dangerous.
Agricultural trailers are designed for off-road use. The only time they are allowed on highways is for actual farm use, and only within a certain distance (usually 20 miles from the farm). Any other use (including transport) is illegal, you will be pulled over, and the police will impound the trailer.
Agricultural trailers are inherently unstable, because of the way the front axle is attached. They will violently sway at any speed over 25 to 30 MPH. There are no brakes or lights or turn signals. Also, with an older trailer, the tires and/or wheel bearings can fail at any time, with tragic results.
If you pull the trailer very slowly, it creates a traffic hazard. People with cell phones WILL call the police to report it, especially when they see your out-of-state license plates.
The only way to transport it legally is on a large flatbed trailer, pulled by a tractor-trailer.
Check with your state police, your Department of Motor Vehicles, and farm equipment dealers to verify all this. Also call the state police and DMV in whatever states you planned to travel through.
Sportacus,
It always surprises me how much I don’t know. I didn’t like the idea of towing such a big, unwieldy thing a couple of hundred miles, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it might not even be legal to do so. Thanks.
I’m still very interested in having one, and I imagine it must be possible to have it shipped here. Perehaps there’s a business opportunity here for someone who lives in cotton country and has access to cheap used cotton trailers.
If you are looking for cotton trailers, I still have a good many of all sizes. I live in NE louisiana and can deliver to almost anywhere. Contact me via email.
I would like to talk to you about buying a cotton trailer. please email me if you have one.
I would like to talk to you about buying a cotton trailer. please email me if you have one.
huckleberry3684@aol.com
Great post, I am extremely interested in agricultural trailers and I find your post really informative. Keep up the good work, Thanks!
Yes, there are cotton trailers in west tennessee and depending on where you want to go, there are many side roads that were built long before the interstate highways that the local gestapo, I mean police, may allow a subject of the state worthy to transit. However, the constitutions in all states recognize the enharant right of a soveriegn to travel freely and the husbandry laws recognize a soveriegns right to transport his freehold,(trailer) from farm to farm. Avoid all ports and lanes. Those are international shipping routes and you willencounter the TSA and other illegal federal agents ready to take you away…Otherwise I may be able to help you locate a trailer.