Oh the adventures of getting a coop. We got notice today from the shipping company that our coop had arrived in Des Moines and was ready for pickup. This was a bit ahead of schedule which made for some exciting times. Read on to see how we got this massive beast home to our farm.
I was at the office today when I got a phone call from the shipping department at one of the (many) loading docks in Des Moines. Our coop had arrived (yay!) and we had 24 hours to pick it up or be charged a storage fee of $115 per day (boo!!!). Now Ben and I have only recently gotten our new acerage, and our “farm style” equipment options are pretty limited. We both have to mid size ranged SUVs (a subaru and a honda) with four wheel drive…. And that’s about it.
We originally planned to borrow a friend’s truck and rent a flatbed trailer to get this massive beast home. However we were unaware of the 24 hour pickup requirement which meant that (of course) the day we needed the truck our friend was out of town and couldn’t get it to us. No worries we thought, we’d just rent one. A few calls around to both Lowes (who had none) and Menards (who had some but were fairly strict on the requirements for renting one), left us with limited options. Then we called Uhaul who had both trucks and cargo vans available. As the weather outside was both super windy, and a frosty tundra (with snow!) we opted for the cargo van to protect the coop on the hour long drive home (as it arrived unpainted).
Uhaul rented by 2pm, work vacation accepted, we bundled up as best we could and headed down the forty minute drive to Des Moines. Along the way, we realized this poor cargo van had never experienced the brutality of Iowa winters and experienced the joys of having to pull over every 15 miles or so to scrape off all the dirt/sleet sprayed up by other vehicles as the windshield washer fluid it came with was ill-equipped for frozen temps.
We semi new what we were expecting as they shipped us pictures of the final product before it shipped. But as we all know, pictures can be deceiving 😉
When we arrived we figured out how to get around all the huge semis and found our order and got that order delivered by forklift to our cargo van. We inspected our wrapped up frame and found nothing damaged too badly, besides a few ripped areas of the plastic wrap.
So far so good. Being completely unprepared for an impromptu-coop-rescue, we armed ourselves with keys and cut open the coop. We then found out, they had secured all the loose pieces together with screws for more secure shipping (yay), but that these screws were not phillips or flat heads or any other sane type of screw, but square drive screws (boo).
We had to (shame) go back into the terminal and a very helpful delivery driver found us two square drive bits for us to use. But we didn’t have a drill or screwdriver to hold them. After a bit more hunting and searching one of the dock mechanics nicely let us use his impact drill to free our coop from it’s package.
As the pieces came way, we realized there were a lot more larger pieces than we were originally planned for. Carolina Coops had told us it would easily fit into the bed of the truck and as the cargo van was larger than this we didn’t think we’d have any issues. But cargo vans have roofs and deep wheel wells which made the math more harder than we anticipated.
After loading and unloading, and loading, and crying and unloading, we realized we were in deep trouble. The coop, even unassembled as far as it could go, would not fit into the cargo van. Cue more crying.
So we called a coworker who lived in Ankeny (near Des Moines) and asked (begged) if he would be interested in leaving work early, driving all the way down to us, loading up four random bits of wood and then driving an hour later to deliver it to us….. and he said yes (surprisingly) and started to head our way. During his travel time, we worked and repacking everything we could possibly fit into our cargo van with the hopes of reducing the time our coworker has to regret his decision to offer help us.
Our coworker arrived to us trying to remember how fingers felt by holding them in front of the cargo van heat vents on full blast. We were unsuccessful. But the four pieces were quickly loaded up onto his truck and strapped down with the loading straps he thoughtfully remembered to bring (yay!). And we were off!
We carefully drove back on sketchy roads. We luckily did not have to scrape the windshield on the way back as we had the cargo vans heaters on full nuclear mode trying to warm ourselves back up. We arrived at home, after dark in super frozen tundra mode. We quickly let the confused and grumpy doggios with many apologies for our tardiness.
Next, unloading the beast. We backed up the cargo van to the barn door for ease of unloading. We then found out the barn door was frozen completely shut and no amount of pushing or pulling or praying would unstuck it. So we reparked the cargo van closer to the people barn door and carried everything in one at a time. This was luckily, for the most part, uneventful, however the last frame piece I accidently dropped and part of the frame cracked. So we might end up having to replace one of the 2 x 4 x 8 pieces when we go to assemble. At the time, we both just swore and hucked it into the barn with the rest of the pieces. We were tired and sore.
The next day, we returned our cargo van. Drove our coworkers truck back to the farm, unloaded and returned it to him with a well deserved full tank of gas and an amazon gift card.
And that was the story of the epic chicken coop rescue. Stay tune for more adventures on Sunset Creek Farm!