KarenS, you could always make smaller hoop coops & make more than one. You would just need to recruit all of your chicken helpers to help you bend the panels to hook them to the frame. I did mine like one person on BYC did since I was doing things by myself, I hooked the first 3 panels to the side boards with the fencing nails & then used the one side to push it over to hook onto the end. I did try using the tie-down straps, but it just didn't work that well for me, I guess I didn't know what I was doing that well. The only reason my hoop coop is 16 ft long is that I'm using it for peafowl & the males especially need more room for their long tails. I figured out how to do that wood brace in the back & front from looking at other people's pics & it actually worked out really well, it makes it a lot more stable. What I like about the hoop coop that is an issue with my other dog run pens is that it's rounded on top so water & snow won't sit up there & cause the roof to fall in, plus those livestock panels are really heavy duty too. The only thing I wish I had done different is I should have painted the boards before using them, that I wish I had done, but oh well, we'll see how long they last the way they are. I do still have two more full length livestock panels, so at some point when I have the time & energy I could make another smaller pen or coop with those. I might as well use them since I have them. My DH also mentioned using the one we already cut for my chicken run door to bend over the two dog runs I have problems with to make rounded tops on those. I told him he would have to help me do that, so it will probably be later on, but I would like to do it before winter to keep snow from making the tops fall in on the pens. The turkey pen is the absolute worst for holding water & it gets so heavy I have to ask my DH to push it back out.
Danz, I have wood siding to go over OSB, it's the same siding we put on our other coop when we had to replace it all. When we converted the shed to a coop we had to replace all the siding on it because it was old & rotted in places & I had neighbor dogs that came over & chewed big holes in the sides trying to get at my cats. I'm glad those dogs are no longer around, they were destructive & nobody kept them under control. On the main coop we didn't have OSB sides, it was just like that when we got it, but on my new one I wanted OSB over the frame & then the siding over that. I will have to paint it then after that is all up. Yeah, my DH is someone who thinks everything has to be very precise & there are times when it isn't that crucial. I appreciate that he wants to do things right, but as you said it takes him forever & a day to plan, it has to be on paper with precise measurements, & then when he starts actually building then it takes him two or three times longer than other people to get it done. I just want the thing done before we leave on vacation. Some of the birds may be getting kind of crowded in the pen they're in by the time everything is done, but I have nowhere else to put them right now. There are a few in the grow-out pen like the 3 Welsummers that will go into my general laying flock & they're getting almost big enough to go there, it will be before too long. Then I have 3 black Ameracuanas that I still can't tell for sure what sexes they are & there are several lavender Orpingtons that I'm pretty sure are roosters, so all but one of those will have to find new homes. I hope to have about all of the different ones to their respective pens or whatever before winter. That pen is going to be where my Wheaten & Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas will reside after I get all of the various breeders to the new breeder coop.
Well it's time to go cook lunch, so I best get off here. I got about 15 messages on FB while I was trying to type this, so I think my whole train of thought went out the window, oh well.
Danz, I have wood siding to go over OSB, it's the same siding we put on our other coop when we had to replace it all. When we converted the shed to a coop we had to replace all the siding on it because it was old & rotted in places & I had neighbor dogs that came over & chewed big holes in the sides trying to get at my cats. I'm glad those dogs are no longer around, they were destructive & nobody kept them under control. On the main coop we didn't have OSB sides, it was just like that when we got it, but on my new one I wanted OSB over the frame & then the siding over that. I will have to paint it then after that is all up. Yeah, my DH is someone who thinks everything has to be very precise & there are times when it isn't that crucial. I appreciate that he wants to do things right, but as you said it takes him forever & a day to plan, it has to be on paper with precise measurements, & then when he starts actually building then it takes him two or three times longer than other people to get it done. I just want the thing done before we leave on vacation. Some of the birds may be getting kind of crowded in the pen they're in by the time everything is done, but I have nowhere else to put them right now. There are a few in the grow-out pen like the 3 Welsummers that will go into my general laying flock & they're getting almost big enough to go there, it will be before too long. Then I have 3 black Ameracuanas that I still can't tell for sure what sexes they are & there are several lavender Orpingtons that I'm pretty sure are roosters, so all but one of those will have to find new homes. I hope to have about all of the different ones to their respective pens or whatever before winter. That pen is going to be where my Wheaten & Blue Wheaten Ameraucanas will reside after I get all of the various breeders to the new breeder coop.
Well it's time to go cook lunch, so I best get off here. I got about 15 messages on FB while I was trying to type this, so I think my whole train of thought went out the window, oh well.
