Egg shaped hoop coop

here are some photos of our hoop house.

we used
- 2 cattle panels
- a couple of pieces of plywood
- some 2x4s
- an old screen door
- tons of 1/2 inch hardware cloth
- tarp from Costco
- lots of zip ties too



We put the nesting boxes inside, but now wish they were on the outside, just to provide more room for roosting.
the roosts are made from some young tree branches we cut out of the woods. I might now use 2x4s if we were re building, we might still change that.
For watering we installed PVC pipes fitted with poultry nipples. The feeder is 4" PVC pipe that can be loaded from the outside.



We don't plan on moving the coop very much. Instead we are moving the electric netting every few days. It's been several months now and only the area right in front of the coop door is worn to the dirt. We are using a solar charger 3 miles, but also got a 10 mile charger that is much more powerful. We would only go with 10 mile from now on with the fencing we have.



We also added some fishing line strung between the trees to help deter raptors. On the wires we added strips of Mylar space blanket material to reflex the light.



Here is an updated photo as of July 23, 2012. You can see the little bit of wearing in front of the coop and our "chicken TV" lounge chairs.

Details of feeder, waterer and nesting box.

Feeder tube and water bucket.


Feeder and water nipples from inside.



we made the nesting boxes wide because we find the girls will pile on top of each other to use the same box. the egg is a wooden egg my DH turned to encourage laying in the boxes. None of our pullets are laying yet.