Hoop Coop Pros and Cons

[paintedChix]

Sounds like it will be anchored when you attach it to the straight wall.

Mine are stand alone coops (1 on a 2x6 base & 2 on 2x4 bases) and have withstood sustained winds of 37 mph during Hurricane Matthew (1 tarp came loose on the BARN side, shredded and had to be replaced) and gusts up to 50/60 mph. The tin roof of the barn right next to the coop and the tin roof on a shed behind the house sustained more damage, but I don't know how long either roof has been in existence. Neighbors couldn't say when either was roofed.



The two that are out more in the open didn't move nor did the tarps sustain any damage. They both stayed dry inside during 2 different rain events where we had more than 9" at one time and more than 11" during hurricane Matthew.



I no longer recall what winds they went thru the first several months at our first property or while they were at another property temporarily for 3 months while we were in the process of closing on this new home and moving in.

Our "temporary" hooped feed sheds have had more damage but I suspect it's because of the farm cats that climb up and lay on the tarps. They are fed in the sheds, too. The 1st one has had the tarp replaced 2x and currently with no hay/bagged feed stored in it is not tarped... The 2nd one very obviously needs a new tarp - while it's not loose, shredded or blowing around, during our last rain event last week (2" of rain in 1 hour + more, not sure how much total) the whole sand floor, and everything in it were wet (including a bag of chicken feed not stored in a trash can) and looking up at it from inside, lots of "starry" sunlight, . But I certainly can't complain - that tarp was used before becoming the roof for that shed and it's lasted 2-1/4 seasons here (tarped in March 2015 - thru June 2017)!

 

[Blooie]

We have steel fence posts pounded down into the ground and wired the our free standing cattle panel arches to them. Has stood up to winds of 60+ mph regularly and handled an officially recorded gust of 90 mph without even flinching. Snow loads and heavy winds have never been an issue. I love this thing, but then we just use ours as a run. Adding a coop, while entirely possible and used very successfully by many, to the cattle panel structure itself isn't the way we chose to do it. We didn't want anything rigid that might fight the winds.

 

[bigmrg74]

I don't anchor mine. They have been through high winds 70 plus mph. No damages.

My tractor coop went tough a nasty windstorm here back in march and it didn't budge. blew a lot of shibby loose but that didn't move, and all it is lot of wire, cattle panels, 2 lays of plastic, a tarp, and a few old pieces of wood for the base of it and the doors. I can slide it around myself, as long as I don't have a stretchy rope for its tow rope like what I have currently.

 

[bigmrg74]

It always amazes me how many different ways there are to build a hoop coop and they work to each builder's needs.

Bigmrg74 - do you have any close ups of how you built in the nest boxes? And your fencing - I'd love to see some pics/specs of that, too.

got those pictures for you....

The nest boxes are just attached to a sheet of plywood, I wanna say either a half inch or 5/8ths maybe that's part of the rear of the coop and helps to support the hoop. I used 2x3's for the roof supports instead of 2x3's to try to save a little wight on the tractor. I kinda wished that I had spaced them out a little differently so that I would have had room to go with 5 nest boxes instead of 4, but it was enough for 12 birds easily. And then once I figured out where the nest boxes would be going, I just cut out a mostly square hole on the plywood to have outside access to the nests and then used a larger piece of plywood to be the door, with a few scraps placed on the plywood sheet to attache the hinges and latches at.

And the fencing is just 5 foot wide plastic deer netting that I got in 100 foot rolls at TSC. Its held up with the stands I made from PVC pipe that I glued together. there's a little cup hook at the top of the stands that hold the fencing. works pretty great, the only real snags I've had with that is when it snows a really sticky snow it can build up on the fencing and weigh it down, or my idiot brother didn't see that I had moved the fencing to there and runs into it.

I made the bases with 1 and a half PVC pipes and the pole is made with 1 inch PVC pipe. I got lucky when I first started out and found a bunch of tees for the middle there that made that work. last summer when I expanded the run to add the second roll of netting, I had to make more stands and I kinda ended up having to hunt high and low for some of those Tees. I have also thought about it after the fact now that packing those base pipes with sand would have made them a lot more stable. Might try that the next time I have to make some. that and maybe even a larger size of pipe for the base as well. Also, you can't see it these pictures well, but the fencing is also pinned down with landscape staples as well. I used bright zipties on them to help them stand out for when I'm coming along to pull them out to move the fencing again.

 

[chick-a- doodle]

If you want it to be portable, you can get heavy ground stakes, then bungee the ends down. I found with low hoop tractors, this was not necessary, as the hoop shape is very aerodynamic! [Although I used this method many times out of fear!] Some people, who have lightweight hoops with wheels on each corner, find high wind will move them. My concern was always the wind giving the tarp covers a kite effect, but, it never happened for me with the 3 hoop tractors I had for 1.5 years and our land is prone to damaging straight line winds. Currently, I have a stationary hoop run (see photos above), which is attached to 4x4 posts. On the outer side of the posts, 18" rebar is driven in the ground; the top of the rebar is even with the 4" posts when driven. The rebar is to keep the pressure of the cattle panels from pushing out, warping the 4x4s (although I have never seen where it happens with posts, only 2x4 bases). The cattle panel hoop is not attached to this rebar. As I stated in my previous post, straight line winds did bend my hoop to one side a bit, but, it didn't go anywhere, thank goodness!

 

[TurnThePage]

Well, I used it as a run, but the simple addition of an enclosure in one end would be wonderful.

Let me address your SO's cons:

Easily invaded by predators. Nope. At least not here, and I'm in northern Wyoming not too far from Yellowstone Park. We used cattle panels secured to steel fence posts, ran chicken wire over that to deter overhead predators, then ran a hardware cloth skirt up about 2 feet and folded it out at the bottom and out about another 2 feet to deter diggers. Works perfectly! Our dog tried to dig under it, broke and bloodied a toenail, blamed the chickens for her misfortune and never bothered them again - even when they were out free ranging she'd share their water pan. We stuck landscape fabric staples every few feet, the grass grows right up through it, and Ken can mow right up to the edge of the run, which takes away hiding places for smaller predators.




The run. The lattice was just added for looks because our setup is on a corner and we didn't want it to be an eyesore when people drove by.


Difficult to keep warm in winter: Again, nope. Here our spring chick season still has temps in the teens and twenties with winds of 60 mph, and I brood chicks out there in the run with just a heating pad cave. We cover it with greenhouse type plastic and our birds are out in it all winter long. The coop is not insulated or heated, and they thrive. Our winter temps are in the sub zero range - as in over a week of 23 below zero until it warmed up to 10 below zero. In summer we just roll up the plastic and replace it with landscape fabric for shade. Easy peasy!



Snow, wind, rain......it doesn't matter. The run stays warm and dry.



Chicks being raised out in the cattle panel run when our temps were in the teens. You can see how bright the run stays, and everyone does just great.

Expensive to build: Nope. Cattle panels are cheap. We picked up 3 of them in the beginning. A couple of years later we decided to expand the run so we bought one more cattle panel and 2 more fence posts. We removed the south end (it came off in one piece with the apron and skirt still attached), put in the posts, wired the new panel in and we were done. We didn't use any wood framing at all....just inexpensive cattle panels, steel fence posts, a roll of wire, zIp ties, and the chicken wire and hardware cloth. This winter we had a wind gust (logged in officially by the National Weather Service) at 90 mph, and that hoop never budged. The best part is the ease of building. Ken and I are both in our 60s, and both of us have some disabilities. It took us no time at all, and we did it all ourselves.



Expanding the run. In the first photo you can see how the end piece came off in one piece, with the skirt and apron still attached. We just added the new panel and wired the end back on.

I hope this info and the photos help. A more complete description of how the run was built is on My Coop. Just click on the link under my avatar and the run build starts about halfway down. This run would make it so easy to simply put a enclosed structure on one end for a coop/run combination. Good luck!

This is an awesome description! Great pictures, too. Thank you!