Portable mew?

[Eagle2160]

Does anybody have a good idea/plan for a portable mew?

[HawkingRage]

i built my mews so that if they need to be moved they can. each wall is bolted to a 4x4. and the seperate roof is bolted down to the 4 walls. just build your walls seperate and it can be done. this is good especially when you dont own your home and you may just need to move this expensive piece of equiptment.

[Eagle2160]

yeah i was thinkin of makin mine out of 4X8's, i dunno any pictures would be appreciated too!

[snafu918]

Check out my site my mews is built out of 4x8 panels and setup for hot weather. If you needed to do it for cold weather you could just put up walls. I think the mews pictures will be in August and September of the archives.

[gishawks]

I also have a mews that can be taken apart by removing bolts. I live in a neighborhood with some pretty strict yard rules, so rather than deal with them, I built my mews such that it is on rollers and roles in and out of my garage on a track, actually 1in channel iron “track”. Sounds weird/complicated, but it really is simple. I have it sticking out of my garage 3-4 feet and lock it into the rail system of the garage door so no one can just push it into the garage and rob me blind. Mine is roughly 8’x8’ and is held together with bolts. Each section is 4x8. The back half is completely enclosed with the shower board from lowes, 8 bucks a sheet. The rest has vertical bars made from porch spindles. The top is pvc pipe for the open side and the back is just covered with a piece of plywood. 1x’s for the floor covered by the rubber mats that you can get from lowes as well, the kind that piece together. I can take it apart in 20 mins or so when need be. I wanted something that I could take apart and store when I did not have a bird, so that is what I came up with. Maybe this will give you some ideas.

[jondarp]

That sounds very interesting and resourceful on your part. I'm continually amazed (and impressed) by the solutions people come up with when faced with challenges regarding the housing of their birds. Very cool!

I'd like to see a photo of your set up if possible.

Thanks.

- Jon D.

[Eagle2160]

Yeah that sounds pretty cool, if you can get pics that would be awsome and the pics where very helpful snafu918 thanks!

[gishawks]

Here are a few pics I snapped yesterday. The battery in my camera was dying so I had to get them kind of in a hurry. You can't see the track system in the photos, but is is basically 1 inch channel that a steel wheel bolted to the bottom of the mews roles in. I can completely role the mews out of the garage and hose it out if I need to, but I usually just take up the interlocking mats and rince them out and put them back in. I also included pic's of a few of the bolt locations as well. I could go into great detail about the design if any one is seriously interested, else wise I doubt you all would want to be bored with the details. My weathering area is also takeapartable, you like that word. It is actually 3'x6' sections of pvc that I put together with chicken wire. The whole thing folds up to around 1'x3'x6' I can toss it in the back of the truck and take it pretty much anywhere. Just unfold it to a 6x6x6 cube. I actually only made it to get me through the inspection, but now fine it useful when traveling and want to keep my bird outside in the weather for weight issues. It could be made prettty much anu size though. Anyway, here are the pictures.

[jfneumann57]

That's really neat looking

[kenbro77]

That is excellant, I like it a lot. Great job!

[bq93]

I'd like to see pics of that "takeapartable" weathering area if you scrounge any up.

[Eagle2160]

gishawks said:

I could go into great detail about the design if any one is seriously interested, else wise I doubt you all would want to be bored with the details.

I wouldn't mind, I am open for anything right now ;D

[manok]

gishawks, that's a trip that portable mew.
Is it set up inside your garage more than it is exposed to the elements ?.

[gishawks]

Manok, the mews is 8’ long on the sides. I built half slatted and half enclosed. So I could have it out of the garage as far as 4’ and leave the enclosed part completely within the garage. Right now I have probably 3’ sticking out, which would leave 5’ inside the garage. Enough is sticking out so that the front perch can get rained on. My garage is 22’ deep so I still have plenty of room behind the mews. I could put my boat behind it if I wanted. I guess I could have also made the mews deeper as well.
Eagle2160, the confining factors in the mews were the dimensions of the garage opening. You can’t tell it from the photos but the mew has probably a ¼ of an inch clearance on either side. The casters I put on the mews on I got from grainger. Can’t remember the exact ones but they were all steel with a 1 in wide wheel and were rated for I think 250 lbs each. I put eight of them under the mews. The track is just 1" channel iron that has a ¼" lip on the sides. I just have it laid down on the garage floor and the rollers sit in the track nicely. The front half of the mews is all treated the back half is untreated since it would be covered completely from the elements. For the slatted top, I used 1" pvc pipe with one piece of pvc running down the middle to keep them from pushing apart. You can see this in the second photo from the top. For the floor I used 2x4 runners and put 1x6 treated boards on top of that. I pieced the 1x6’s such that I can take a screw out of each one and the floor comes apart to. I have 2 perches in the mews right now. The shower board that I put in the back comes in 4x8 sheets. I knew it would not be getting that much water on it so I went with the cheaper one. If it were going to be soaked on a regular basis, I would get the solid fiberglass ones. They will never rot or warp up on you like the cheaper paper boards with the waterproof finish on one side. I think that about covers it. If you have any specific question just let me know. I am sure I missed something along the way.
BQ93, bellow are the pics of the “takeapartable” weathering area. Probably be better to call it “foldupable”. I have the sides tie wrapped together so it all folds up kinda like a road map. Like I said before I really only built it to get me through the inspection, but it is actually pretty useful if your like me and travel a fair bit. I do have to use a fairly short leash when I put my bird in there. If I were to do it all over again, I would probably build each section 4’x6’ so the thing would be 8’x6’ when erect. You can’t tell it from the pics but it was virtually dark when I put the thing up, so it is all crocked and I did not hook half the bungee tie cords. I used 2x3 wire on the sides and plastic 1” wire on the top to cut down on weight and causing the top to bow. The whole thing basically unfolds and then I use the bungee ties to hook it all together. Pretty crude but very portable and definitely serves its purpose. I have some steel spikes that I use to anchor it to the ground as well. Sorry the pics are so shotty, but like I said, it was basically dark and I was kinda rushing. Anyway, let me know if you have any question.

[miket307]

I'm impressed!

For those people that have limited space for mews and weathering areas should be inspired by your creativity.

The weathering area would be nice for traveling too. For extra long rides or hunting trips away from your normal stomping grounds. Of course you would have to keep an eye on things but it would buy you a few minutes to react if something unexpected happened.