Hoop House/Coop

[lpyrbby]

I was thinking to just attach roosts to the panels.
Will your hoop coop be mobile?

Oh dear no! Husband is building it outside of our detached garage right now, and then he'll tow it over to the spot with his truck where we'll make sure it's level and then that bad boy is staying put!

If we have to, we'll attache roosts to the panels. I'm certain it can be done, I just really like the idea of having something that doesn't require the walls. I'm thinking about building the brooder under the area where we'll have the nest boxes. Since we'll be doing the DLM, I really want to mitigate poop in places I don't want it to be. I haven't resolved that part yet, but I figure I shouldn't encourage roosting in front of the boxes lol. I think I'm going to have to wait to see what he does with the boxes.

 

[aart]

..., but I figure I shouldn't encourage roosting in front of the boxes...

Good point......mine will be for mostly meat birds, or chick and/or cockerel growout, so no nests needed.

 

[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.

 

[lpyrbby]

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.

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

 

[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.

 

[aart]

Quote: Thanks blucoondawg.
Yeah, welding would do the trick..lol.

 

[paintedChix]

I didn't lap ours either. The coops are zip tied. My "shed" roofs - 1 wrapped w/ wire and the other with haystring.