After our big moving party for part one of chicken coop moving, we decided to not exhaust our social capital entirely on part two, and moved the other half of the chickens' home using the power of physics! It helped that the run is on the ground, so we didn't need massive amounts of manpower (or ladypower) to lift it.
My dad gave me a pair of giant pry bars when I bought this house. So far, I've mostly only used them to smash the ice dams that built up the winter I didn't roof rake. Definitely not the recommended practice: ladders plus ice plus crow bars. It was lovely to use them for their intended purpose this time.
The theory: use the pry bars to lift up the corners of the coop. Place 2X4 rails under the coop, going the direction we want to move it. Lift it up a little bit more and put 2 inch PVC pipe rollers in place. Push.
And it worked!!! It's always a bit surprising when something I learn fromYoutube actually works. We were able to push the run up into a low trailer and got to drive through the hood like the Clampetts again, still my favorite part.
And with a little help from a random neighbor kid who happened to be walking through the alley, we got it unloaded and used some more physics to move it in to place.
Step three might be a while; it involves lifting the coop and walking it across the yard to set it in place on the run. But for now we have our lovely ladies living in their coop on the ground, and they get to run around the back yard. They're super confused about this new setup, and also not terribly interested in leaving since the temperature has yet to rise above 0. But we're all glad (the chickens and the humans) to be living at the same house!
