Florida Specific - Hurricane Considerations

[SilverChic]

I'm a native Floridian, we live more central in the state, not near the coast at all! So, we rarely get what we have the last two years. We got Milton, Ian and Debby. I will say it rattled my nerves for sure. Lost a couple of barns and a few large oaks (in back acreage. Nothing compared to many, we were blessed for sure, but still scary.

My coops are all under large oak canopies, near the house (great wind breaks) we had a few large branches get broken off and fall on the coops, but they held up, no birds injured or real damage done, thank the Good Lord for that! Trees will be cleaned up before next season.

My new coops/runs are Producers Pride Poultry Pens pretty sturdy metal pens, I'm wanting to put a roof on them and was looking for secure ideas to keep them from flying off (I will be anchoring each section as I had done with the other coop) and to make more water proof inside. I have canvas roof covers on now, but they won't last too much longer (they were given to me-old but usable) so I want to put a more permanent roof on, tin or PVC panels. I need to make things easy since I'm getting up there in age, I don't need to be on ladders too much longer.

Any Floridians out there have their coops hurricane proofed? Thanks and God Bless!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I'm a native Floridian, we live more central in the state, not near the coast at all! So, we rarely get what we have the last two years. We got Milton, Ian and Debby. I will say it rattled my nerves for sure. Lost a couple of barns and a few large oaks (in back acreage. Nothing compared to many, we were blessed for sure, but still scary.

My coops are all under large oak canopies, near the house (great wind breaks) we had a few large branches get broken off and fall on the coops, but they held up, no birds injured or real damage done, thank the Good Lord for that! Trees will be cleaned up before next season.

My new coops/runs are Producers Pride Poultry Pens pretty sturdy metal pens, I'm wanting to put a roof on them and was looking for secure ideas to keep them from flying off (I will be anchoring each section as I had done with the other coop) and to make more water proof inside. I have canvas roof covers on now, but they won't last too much longer (they were given to me-old but usable) so I want to put a more permanent roof on, tin or PVC panels. I need to make things easy since I'm getting up there in age, I don't need to be on ladders too much longer.

Any Floridians out there have their coops hurricane proofed? Thanks and God Bless!

Have you thought about checking with your county Extension Agent? If there are a lot of chicken owners in the area, they might have a poultry specialist, or at least a small farms specialist.

I imagine they have a website, plus you can always call.

Here’s something from the state extension service. It’s pretty general, but it might get you started:
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/VM276

 

[SourRoses]

Hi from Ocala!

We don't have ours very hurricane proof. When we do (before next season) I plan to dig deep down, concrete in some anchors. Because we live on sand, there's not a lot of options besides the hard work one.

The live oak trees are such a blessing. They cut the wind down so much. With their root base spread wide to mirror the shape of the canopy, they are the most wind resistant trees. Add to that the toughness of the wood which was used to build ships like the historic "Old Iron Sides".
Just make sure any weakened branches are taken care of.
And be wary of arborists who like to pronounce everything dead so they can resell the wood for the popular, pricey, live edge planks.

Other species of Oak can be weaker...
Like when the town of Live Oak cut down a bunch of Live oaks and people complained, so the town planted a bunch of White oaks... Then a storm came through and ripped them all up.

But if you have any pines that could fall on structures I would cut them down.

For hurricane Milton in '24, we had a totally inadequate little coop that wasn't hurricane proofed at all.
The only thing that saved it was the oaks, and we had a privacy fence on the NE side where the wind was howling in from. The sturdy fence forced the wind to go over the roof level of the coop on the other side.
* The posts were concreted in, deep.
A solid PVC panel fence (the white ones) would probably work better because of the smooth surface cutting wind resistance. I'm pretty sure at the hardware store, I've seen stickers proclaiming a fence to be hurricane resistant. Though it would be important to follow all the recommendations to meet the standard.
So the idea there is to sacrifice the fence to buffer the coop.