Hoop House/Coop

[lpyrbby]

It's that time of year. I don't have chickens. Feed stores and the like do. And it's hard to be on 4 acres and want chickens!

I'm still deliberating on whether I can squeeze in the time for them right now, but eventually, it'll happen. I've been searching tonight for cost effective coop ideas, and I think I like the idea of a hoop house the most. After talking it over with my husband, he has ideas that I'm not sure will fly (see what I did there?) and wanted to pose them to you all, who are far more knowledgeable on things chicken.

First, this is my inspiration: http://littlecountryhouse.blogspot.com/2014/09/diy-chicken-tractor.html Their build was for a chicken tractor which turned out too heavy for them. At least heavier than what they expected. I'm not interested in this being a chicken tractor. Maybe one of those will come later.

I want to use 4x8 sheets of plywood around the coop section. I'll use wood for the front and back. The back, will have the nest boxes with the outside door access. The front will have your standard human access. I'm thinking we'll dig a trench around the base and drop in some ready mix and add water to help keep critters out. I want a dirt floor to do the deep litter method. I want to use the actual cattle panels for the hoop.

Question 1 - Corrugated metal seems to be the most sensible option for the roof - flexibility and ease of obtaining. I live 50 miles from Charleston, SC. It's hot and humid down here. How likely is it that this will cook my birds? Is there something else I should consider? I'm not totally keen on using tarps but if I need to, I will. Cheaper anyway I think.

Question 2 - Husband would rather use PVC. I'm fine with that for the run section, but not so much for the actual house. He'd rather use the PVC to build the hoops and use chicken wire + poultry netting and NOT the cattle panels. Opinions? Pros/cons?

Question 3 - Does anyone have any real world experience in stretching out bent wire, such as chain link fencing? We have some around the property but it's kinda bent in all different directions. I'm of the opinion that cattle panel will be easier, especially at $20 a panel. He's being a good husband and doing thrifty thinking in trying to reuse what's here. I think it's going to be more hassle than it's worth.

We do have a coop on the property already, with a hoop run. The coop though needs some attention that I don't think we're willing to deal with (roof leak, floor rot from roof leak, further away from the house than I prefer). We can harvest the nesting boxes from it, as well as some wood, possibly. There's also some PVC/conduit from the current run that could be reused. I think he's wanting to try to reuse the wire from that as well.

I'm not opposed to reusing what we have, but I don't want to plan on reusing materials that aren't reusing.

Any input?

 

[lpyrbby]

Woo! So we bought a good chunk of the materials needed for the coop today We have to go back out into the world tomorrow to get the cattle panels, some more roofing (since hubs wasn't hearing me that I wanted to make the coop area larger than what was in the build that I found), some hinges for the nest boxes and the feeder/waterer stuff. Probably bedding too. I don't think we'll be able to start the build until Sunday but hopefully it'll go together quickly.

I also invested in a tiller today. The area where we want to put the coop was the former garden of the old residents. There are some deep holes that I'll need to fill in and they did some other weird things to the land that left intentional ruts that aren't going to be good for having any pasture animals. That's my job tomorrow - to break up the mounds and try to level the playing field for future critters.

I'm going to till the area for the chickens and fill holes as I can. I'm going to lay down some hardware cloth to hopefully deter some of the larger diggers. I'll kinda "bury" this into the land. We'll set the frame and build the coop. I plan on filling the coop area with any extra dirt I can make available and then bags and bags of pine shavings/chips. I think we've decided we'll leave it a three-walled run for now, roughly 8x8 and they can come and go as they please into an additional 8x8 area of run. If I mess up the grass too much with the tiller, I'll get some barley or something else for fodder/sod so the new residents have something to work with.

I've made contact with someone local who has a couple Speckled Sussex that I'm really interested in. She also has a dark Brahma that we may also get. They're about 2 months old now. We may also get some chicks of some kind. For them, I'm hoping to run some power (likely via a long extension cord) to the coop so I can set up the mama hen heating pad in the coop. I'll separate the littles from the biggers with an old puppy pen that I have. Hopefully that will help integrate the littles with the biggers.

Does it sound like we're on the right path? What am I missing?

Also, roosts and nest boxes. Is there a preferred location for them in relation to one another? We're planning for the nest boxes to be on the coop end of the hoop house. I think husband is planning on making them to where they are kind of an "extension" of the coop and not taking up real estate inside it. That way, we can have lids to access the boxes from the outside. How high should they be? What problems would possibly occur if they were set closer to the ground? (I read a few threads where people were concerned after the broodies hatched chicks in an elevated box)

What an investment chickens are! And how consuming they are of your mind! Yikes lol

 

[lpyrbby]

Husband has been a great helper. He got this righted by himself with a couple of trees to hold one side and his truck to pull the other side over and it righted on its own. This isn't where the coop will be living, it just happens to be closer to all the materials and tools. He's hoping to slap some wheels on it and tow it over to where it's going to live. He's got doc appointments in town tomorrow, so I'm optimistic to come home, take care of the dogs, then get out in the yard and pin down the hardware cloth for the base. Small steps!

 

[petcrazy]

This is my duck pen. It was pretty simple to build. I put 3 post in the ground and ran a 2x4 across the top and just bent pvc pipe over the top. Lay your wire over and tie with zip ties..

 

[paintedChix]

I've found that the whole "pen" becomes the coop and all you need to provide are the roosts and the nesting boxes. We haven't roofed ours yet with a permanent roof - silver, metal tin has been ruled out though because of how hot it gets under it here in NC. I've had tin roofed sheds and barns and didn't like them. I don't feel that I've needed an actual enclosed smaller area for them - yet.

There are quite a few different designs for the hoop coops. For us, we found that the cattle panels were cheaper and easier to work with than the pvc pipe. I've now done 3 different style backs to the hoop coops that we built and we have some new ideas we want to try out. Our originals were built in a hurry - using things we had on hand due to moving when we weren't expecting to.

Our 3 hoop coop "tractors" (HEAVY - especially the one built from 2x6) have survived two winters and 2 property moves going 7 miles on the first move and 25 on the 2nd - 2 on a flat bed trailer and 1 balanced on the 8' bed of a truck. The birds kept in the tarp roofed and backed hoop coops did better than the ones kept in a wooden coop when the temps dropped to the single digits in both 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. We are in the process of taking out the lower parts of the wood coop (bare ground - DLM used with leaves, pine straw & grass clippings) now and putting hardware cloth on it for extra ventilation and to match what we have going on with the hoop coops.

Here are some pics of our "hoops". The 2 pullets in the back right are BAs, the PVC pipe above them was the roost at the time. The small chicks on the left are actually in a dog Xpen covered in chicken wire. The blue bucket on the front of this pen can have the lid put on the front and the rear/bottom of the bucket removed - making a tunnel door for the chickens to get in/out of. Maybe not as pretty as a traditional door, but a great way to use either free buckets (from a local deli/bakery) or to reuse ones that have split when frozen w/ water in them over the winter. We just used chicken wire and have had no predator problems at any of the places we've been. Soon, I will have 2 buckets in the 2x4 square to the left of the door - they will be the nesting boxes. My hens all seem to like to lay closer to the ground and I never get nests used that are above the ground.



I did find that between the barn and the pony wagon and the 2 horse trailers, the wind was channeled, so I used feed bags (reusing what I can) stitched together in a line and then attached like a tarp to the bottom of the pen. That kept the birds comfy and everyone seemed happy - even when we had all that ice in January. I don't have any pics, but also have the roost itself blocked from the wind. Now that the chicks are mature, we need to add a "real" roost of 2x4. We now have a hanging waterer next to the hanging feeder. Instead of the heat lamp, we will use a MHP for the next batch of chicks.



In this one, the blue bucket (upright) is holding water (just a feed pan waterer for now). The red bucket w/ lid - holds 1/2 a bag of feed which I then pour into another bucket feeder for them. Eventually the bucket will have the PVC elbows to eat directly from them & the blue one will be a hanging nipple waterer, but haven't done those projects yet. The roosts are now above the bottoms of the tarps. The chickens in these two coops, after going out to free range in the AM, were the ones that were decimated. Out of 12 pullets & 9 roosters, I have 2 pullets and 3 roosters left now. I kept them locked up in these hoop coops for a while - they weren't happy and neither was I. They are back to free ranging during the day. The two older pullets and the young chicks in the hoop by the barn - never bothered.





I haven't had any problems with predators IN our pony pasture (where these coops are) messing with the coops but have once the chickens were free ranging. I had some starving "neighbor" dogs (not from any of the homes directly on our private road) dig under our perimeter fencing - chasing and mutilating birds they caught w/o eating them. I chased the dogs off when I caught them trying to dig in again (didn't have a gun on me - headed to town to meet my family for a family breakfast after they got off the "grave yard" shifts at their jobs). We have 7 acres perimeter fenced and 21 acres total. Our dogs will dig out of the pasture if I leave them in it... Right now our perimeter fence is not hot wired, but will be eventually.

You stated that you are filling holes? Too funny - the birds will dig more! Even after you get your DLM built up (if that is what you are doing). Some of mine dig more than others. Haven't figured it out yet, LOL. I would let your new chicks do the roto tilling. They LOVE doing that and they do a GREAT Job. If you do a hoop coop you can move, they can do it in sections for you - doing better and digging deeper as they mature.

I can't wait to see your finished design and what you do with your hoop coop. On BYC, there are a couple that I really like and they are featured on the BYC Coops pages.

 

[lpyrbby]

Husband used the zip ties to hold the panels together before getting it upright, and then once it was upright, he went through with the galvanized wire.







Where the coop is at now, near the garage (and tools) isn't level at all, so he shimmed some bricks and boards under the one side so he's better able to work on getting the back wall board on. Whenever we get there lol



This last photo shows the fence staples holding the panels together on the board.

 

[lpyrbby]

Soooo...we're getting our 2 month olds tomorrow! 2 Speckled Sussex, 1 BLR Wyandotte, and 1 Dark Brahma One or two of them may be cockerels. That's okay. We'll play things by ear. I'm interested in getting a couple of silkie hens later, for hatching even later. Since the coop isn't finished, husband is almost done building a temporary brooder type pen that we'll hopefully be able to add into the hoop coop once it's finished. Just wanted to share

I picked up some PVC for a homemade feeder today. Still not sure what's going to hold their water, but oh well. I still have to go get bedding and crumbles for them too. I think that's it. Oh...no...a dust bath spot too...Chick grit? Sheesh...

 

[Blooie]

This is my setup. The hoop is just the run, but it could easily be adapted to act as both, I think. We love it, wouldn't change a thing about it. The coop was a family affair - hubby, me, 8 year old grandson, and our son Kenny, but the run was a snap for just Ken and me. Pretty impressive considering we've both seen the sunny side of 60 a while back, and both of us have some disabilities. Expansion later on was a piece of cake too.












Even Wyoming snow and heavy winds were no problem at all.


The enclosure on the left of the photo is our brooder, built right into the run. We can raise chicks there anytime.

 

[blucoondawg]

With livestock panel hoop houses, do you overlap the panels or butt the edges together?
I've looked at a bunch of them and never saw that detail....so thought I'd ask here.

You can lap them if you want to but it's not necessary, it would add some strength vertically against snow loads and such but honestly that's not needed. Mine is 3 sections long just butted together and a friend built one 5 sections long his is butted as well but only zip tied, mine is welded, however both stood up very well to northern Wisconsin snowfall.

I just put roosts across the corners and wired them to the hoop coop. Though I'll never use roosts again for any sort of meat bird, I had pioneers and red rangers and quite a few had breast blisters from resting against the roost bars

If you are building mobile to use tractor style I recommend rigging wheels on it if you go 3 sections or larger, mine is heavy enough to be a pain in the rear to move but I don't use it as a tractor, right now it's a happy home for my 7 feeder pigs.

 

[Blooie]

T Posts probably would have been way cheaper than the wood we picked up for our frame, that's for sure! LOL. How did you guys attach to the posts? The wire clips? I'm semi certain we'll be making another in the future and I'm interested in how the t posts work out. Also, what size panels did you use? It seems like we'd need to get longer panels to make them as wide as you did. I'm already going to be ducking in what we're working on lol Do you add tarps or anything in winter? I'm also considering the cattle panel hoop style runs for other livestock in the future

We just twisted wire to hold the panels to the fence posts. They're pounded in pretty deep..digging in this dirt here was not an option. In the winter we use a clear plastic top over much of it, leaving plenty open to prevent condensation, and it's worked beautifully. I don't think we got any special size panels.....just what TSC had on sale at the time. I think they are 16 feet long. We had a real scientific way of determining how wide to make the run. We stood the first cattle panel in place against the post and then Ken grabbed it and started walking to the other side of where the run would be. When he could stand comfortably, we anchored the first side with a single tie. Then we jiggled it until we got both the height and the width we wanted, and marked that spot on with rock. That's where we drove in the opposite fence post, and we kept going from there. As you can see in the first picture, there's enough tension in the cattle panels being forced up against the posts to hold them in place while we did our fiddling. When that pic was taken, nothing was wired into place yet.

If you click on My Coop under my avatar, there are some more pictures and explanations for the run just past the building of the coop part.