Hoop Coop Pros and Cons

[Blooie]

Mine has held up to heavy snow loads, high winds, hail, and heat perfectly. As I've said before, for us the key is not having any structural components - no framing, no bracing. So there is no wind resistance at all, it can flex freely as it needs to. We regularly see winds, any time of year, up to and sometimes in excess of 60mph. We even had an officially recorded gust of 90mph in January of this year and it stood strongly. As for heat buildup, we use landscape fabric so there is shade while air flows right through it. Except for adding another panel a couple of years ago to expand the size, we haven't had to touch it since it was put up in 2014. Not one repair or tweak.

 

[TinyBirds]

We use the Best Choice products greenhouse frame, galvanized steel and sturdy). We got them at jet.com on sale for $100 each and free shipping. They are 7 ft by 15 ft and 7 ft tall. Built a door on one side, covered in hardware cloth 16 gauge from fencerwire.com coated nylon, and apron added. I added 16" wheels that are removeable. Will try to get a picture sometime.

 

[BoogieBug]

Well, I used it as a run, but the simple addition of an enclosure in one end would be wonderful.
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I hope this info and the photos help. A more complete description of how the run was built is on My Coop. Just click on the link under my avatar and the run build starts about halfway down. This run would make it so easy to simply put a enclosed structure on one end for a coop/run combination. Good luck!

This is AWESOME! Definitely sharing this with my husband! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!

 

[bigmrg74]

The Hoop Coop tractor I built last summer. I liked it a lot than my old A frame coop I had built before. lot more useable space in it. I kinda build a platform for the cattle panels to have them that much further up off the ground so that the ceiling wouldn't be so low. I'm 6'4" and not really that much of a fan of ducking if I can help it. And I think it turned out lighter than the A-frame tractor I had. it can be bit of a pain making sure that I get it to seal to the ground sometimes, but with about a year on it I haven't lost a chicken in it yet, and there's all sorts of critters around our farm.

 

[paintedChix]

It always amazes me how many different ways there are to build a hoop coop and they work to each builder's needs.

Bigmrg74 - do you have any close ups of how you built in the nest boxes? And your fencing - I'd love to see some pics/specs of that, too.

 

[chick-a- doodle]

I made 4 hoop tractors (portable coops), which were electrified, that I used for 1.5 years. The pros, of course, moveable so the girls had fresh grass and no poop to clean up! The con, too hot in summer as I have absolutely no natural shade in the summer. The low hoop design was very good in wind = aerodynamic. When knee injuries made maintaining the tractors uncomfortable for me, we built a standard hen house with an attached hoop run, also electrified. I love the hoop design, personally!

I liked the design of this hoop tractor best.

During the construction phase of the hoop run.

The electrified run is surrounded by stone I made!

I have 15.5 feet of grazing frames on each side of the hoop run, which is 9.5'x25'. Later, I added pea gravel to the lower part of the run.

I put in a 12" board to prevent grass clippings from being spread all over the run.

A 60 mph straight line wind did shift the hoop a bit to one side, but, the tarp roof survived quarter size hail during that same storm cell!

 

[bigmrg74]

It always amazes me how many different ways there are to build a hoop coop and they work to each builder's needs.

Bigmrg74 - do you have any close ups of how you built in the nest boxes? And your fencing - I'd love to see some pics/specs of that, too.

The nest boxes are just attached to a sheet of plywood, I wanna say either a half inch or 5/8ths maybe that's part of the rear of the coop and helps to support the hoop. I used 2x3's for the roof supports instead of 2x3's to try to save a little wight on the tractor. I kinda wished that I had spaced them out a little differently so that I would have had room to go with 5 nest boxes instead of 4, but it was enough for 12 birds easily. And then once I figured out where the nest boxes would be going, I just cut out a mostly square hole on the plywood to have outside access to the nests and then used a larger piece of plywood to be the door, with a few scraps placed on the plywood sheet to attache the hinges and latches at.

And the fencing is just 5 foot wide plastic deer netting that I got in 100 foot rolls at TSC. Its held up with the stands I made from PVC pipe that I glued together. there's a little cup hook at the top of the stands that hold the fencing. works pretty great, the only real snags I've had with that is when it snows a really sticky snow it can build up on the fencing and weigh it down, or my idiot brother didn't see that I had moved the fencing to there and runs into it.

I'll try to take some close ups of it later when I'm over at the farm later today.

 

[eggbert420]

My hoop coop cost me $230

Here's a link with more pictures.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/200-chicken-coop-tractor.1154855/

 

[Gail Laubenthal]

We are building a new hoop coop and are wondering how people anchor them to the ground. This will be a 21' x 12' coop with one side straight up and down the the 16' cattle panels (5) arching over to the straight wall. We are wondering what others do to not lose their coop to high winds.

 

[eggbert420]

I don't anchor mine. They have been through high winds 70 plus mph. No damages.