Justin Rhodes

The justin rhodes show, homestead adventures making movies while the sun shines

11/07/2024

Lucky me, I somehow found Joel Salatin when I was teaching myself how to manage animals on my small farm. I was ripe, open minded and ready to learn from whoever. I could have ran into the Devil himself and wouldn’t have known it and farmed my precious land right into the ground.

Thankfully, I found Joel, and he manages his farm in a regenerative way. And, that’s through MOBILE animal systems. Chickens for example, are not only for eggs, they are put to work fertilizing pasture and spreading cow manure. But Joel’s systems are large scale. He’s got the egg mobile made to move several hundred birds. (1st pic)

I needed a solution that I could move by hand or with a small machine, so I got to work making it happen. I took our stationary coop and mounted bicycle wheels to it and handles and moved it around like a rickshaw. And, it worked!

I had proven the concept that I could create a mobile system that just one person could move. (Second pic) So I created an original design with flat free tires and p**p free coop and chickshaw 1.0 was born (3rd pic).

finally I recruited a professional partner who is an expert engineer and carpenter. Chris Slattery has been able to simplify the build process and streamline the designs. Now, I can say with confidence we have something that’s near perfect, if not perfect. We settled on the ChickShaw 5.0 (4th pic). But the Chickshaw is only the tip of the iceberg. Soon followed the Chicken Tractor, the MeatShaw (for raising meat chickens), the TurkeyShaw, Raised Garden Beds and more.

We’ve put 12 of my most popular designs in one book, complete with step by step plans on how to build them (if you can build legos, you can build these). All 12 designs are ready now via digital downloads and we’re taking orders through the 26th before we go to print (get your book by Christmas). Just write “builds” in the comment and this thingamajiger will dm you the link :)