Blooie, can you give a link to those clamps?????We skipped using the grommets almost completely on ours, Miss Bee. The doggone things are never exactly where you need them the most, and I'm too lazy and un-talented to put new ones where I want them. So we just use the grommets on one side - the anchor side on the west - and then use heavy spring clamps on the rest. Having it anchored on one side allows us to pull the other sides snugly into position, then we just give them a roll or two to fit and clamp them to the cattle panels. Man, that worked slick last winter. On nice days we could just unclip, roll the tarp as much as we wanted to allow more air exchange in and out, then re-clip to the new position. One wintry day our winds were gusting to 72 mph and they held totally and beautifully. I really like the flexibility this gives us to take advantage of more balmy days and protect when it's really nasty. The adjusting doesn't take but a few minutes, so we aren't out there freezing our hineys off fiddling with it, either.
I'd love to do the "wings" like you have, but I know there is no way I can do it here. Our situation is totally unique, and our needs are special for our area, and geared especially to my little feathered friends who are totally different than anyone else's feathered friends and .....and.....
Sue, awesome plan. I love the ingenuity!I thought I'd share our winterization plan for our coop. We decided to put something up to prevent the snow from getting into the enclosure and only covered two sides, leaving the other two open to air. I wanted to staple up plastic sheeting, but my husband had a more expensive idea--about $200 all in. We put clear plastic panels up in a way that we can remove them easily and without tools and store them for summer. We live in southwest Michigan and get a lot of snow starting around...um. Now. It's totally time. So here's what we did, I hope it's useful.
Before: The coop regularly gets snow in it, and I have to shovel every day, or my girls won't go out and get their food.
These polycarbonate panels were about $30 each at Lowe's for a 12' x 26" wide (they also come in 8' lengths for about $20 each). They are really great material-heavy but not brittle, and easy to cut with tin snips.
We cut them to size and leaned them against the interior of the enclosure, and fashioned simple fasteners out of pine trim. Drill hole in the end,
Then use the table saw to cut a notch in the end that goes through the hole you just drilled.
Attach a screw eye (we used open ended ones) to the coop frame.
Slide the trim piece onto the screw eye and put a bolt through, and Bob's your uncle.
My husband hanging the panels
The finished product. This took us a total of about 3 hours to construct.
