Modified Hoop Coop Design Development

[Victoria-nola]

Originally Posted by aart Nope, the only width dimension is the roof panel width of 50, the 84 you see is the length of Tpost..both those dimension are in the side view
The base width dimension should have been in the end view(showing the curve of roof)....but, anyway......

I would suggest that you get a few cattle panels, a couple of 10' 2x4's, a half dozen 7 or 8' Tposts (and a tpost hammer if you don't have one) and play with it.
Sometimes you have to handle a thing and get a feel for it to make fabrication decisions.
I use deck and drywall screws for almost everything....you could just drive some screws into the flat of the 2x4 to hold the panel in a curve, easy to adjust to change it.

I envisioned the flat, knobby side of tpost towards inside of coop, wall panels inside.
Roof panel ends resting on edge of wall panels.
Panels clipped to tpost with fence clips or wire ties and everything else wired or ziptied together.
Cool! And simple!

The plans called "Permanent Hoop Coop" call for using "hog rings" (or, "loxit" rings) to hold things together. These are split rings you use a tool to close around your materials and come in different sizes. Do you know anything about these? I'm totally confused because the first ones I bought are too small to do the job with cattle panels.

We used heavy UV-protected zip ties for the temporary coop and I normally use those for just about everything. We do have a huge quantity of the metal fencepost clips from when we put up our curtilage fencing and decided to go with zipties instead. Our family friend who will be helping us build this is our longtime "handyman" and he taught me to use deck screws for outdoor construction. It's totally the way to go, for sure. We have the cattle panels onhand, but gosh I would love to find a stash of used ones to buy, we're almost out!

Thank you so so much for helping with this. Might have more questions as process goes on. {{{hugs}}}

--V

 

[aart]

Do not like hog rings or jclips....maybe I'm just not good at applying them, they are difficult to get back off if you screw up.

I used large vise grip pliers to bring panels tight at joint then heavy duty UV-protected zipties.....not sure they'll hold up long term tho, will wrap with heavy wire if they do fail.

Not sure the fence clips would work, might not quite reach across.

 

[Molpet]

I used the plastic ziptye while I was building and when I was done went back and put in hog rings,..I have squirrels that like to chew plastic.. water lines, vents on gas cans, bicycle computer buttons and handle bars

I tried all sizes of hog rings and found these worked for me w/the pliers made for them.
size 3 hog rings for the cattle panels ( cheaper at farm store) https://www.amazon.com/Decker-Hills-Hump-Rings-Count/dp/B000BQSGC2
and 1/2" ones used for sausage casings for the 1/2 hardware cloth http://www.bigr.com/sporting-goods-...peners/lem-hog-rings-100-count-3449410025.htm

 

[Victoria-nola]

Where do the 10' 2x4s go?

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote: Cool! And simple!

The plans called "Permanent Hoop Coop" call for using "hog rings" (or, "loxit" rings) to hold things together. These are split rings you use a tool to close around your materials and come in different sizes. Do you know anything about these? I'm totally confused because the first ones I bought are too small to do the job with cattle panels.

We used heavy UV-protected zip ties for the temporary coop and I normally use those for just about everything. We do have a huge quantity of the metal fencepost clips from when we put up our curtilage fencing and decided to go with zipties instead. Our family friend who will be helping us build this is our longtime "handyman" and he taught me to use deck screws for outdoor construction. It's totally the way to go, for sure. We have the cattle panels onhand, but gosh I would love to find a stash of used ones to buy, we're almost out!

Thank you so so much for helping with this. Might have more questions as process goes on. {{{hugs}}}

--V

Do not like hog rings or jclips....maybe I'm just not good at applying them, they are difficult to get back off if you screw up.

I used large vise grip pliers to bring panels tight at joint then heavy duty UV-protected zipties.....not sure they'll hold up long term tho, will wrap with heavy wire if they do fail.

Not sure the fence clips would work, might not quite reach across.

Definitely don't want to use the hog rings for pasting together, I agree, not fun.

Great idea on vise grips! especially good to think about where we will have the roof panels and the wall panels coming together, lots of sproing going on. Right, fence clips won't work.

Ok here's another thing-- at what point do we clad with hardware cloth? if we clad after pounding in the t-posts, the posts will be inside the hardware cloth (like our current temp coop has). It looks a bit less tidy and creates some wrinkles that need to be sewn shut. However, we did make it work. One wants the hardware cloth to be continuous wherever possible so cladding each panel separately is not a good solution, I wouldn't think. otoh, would the posts be given any additional strength by being inside the h.c.?

 

[Victoria-nola]

I used the plastic ziptye while I was building and when I was done went back and put in hog rings,..I have squirrels that like to chew plastic.. water lines, vents on gas cans, bicycle computer buttons and handle bars

I tried all sizes of hog rings and found these worked for me w/the pliers made for them.
size 3 hog rings for the cattle panels ( cheaper at farm store) https://www.amazon.com/Decker-Hills-Hump-Rings-Count/dp/B000BQSGC2
and 1/2" ones used for sausage casings for the 1/2 hardware cloth http://www.bigr.com/sporting-goods-...peners/lem-hog-rings-100-count-3449410025.htm

ACK! I've heard about that. I agree that having some metal on there would be good, and using it AFTERWARD to say, sew seams of hardware cloth together would be a great use of it. Definitely would want to get it into shape using zipties first.

Great links, thank you. Which of those would work for attaching 1/2" hardware cloth to cattle panels?

 

[aart]

Quote: Cool! And simple!

The plans called "Permanent Hoop Coop" call for using "hog rings" (or, "loxit" rings) to hold things together. These are split rings you use a tool to close around your materials and come in different sizes. Do you know anything about these? I'm totally confused because the first ones I bought are too small to do the job with cattle panels.

We used heavy UV-protected zip ties for the temporary coop and I normally use those for just about everything. We do have a huge quantity of the metal fencepost clips from when we put up our curtilage fencing and decided to go with zipties instead. Our family friend who will be helping us build this is our longtime "handyman" and he taught me to use deck screws for outdoor construction. It's totally the way to go, for sure. We have the cattle panels onhand, but gosh I would love to find a stash of used ones to buy, we're almost out!

Thank you so so much for helping with this. Might have more questions as process goes on. {{{hugs}}}

--V

Do not like hog rings or jclips....maybe I'm just not good at applying them, they are difficult to get back off if you screw up.

I used large vise grip pliers to bring panels tight at joint then heavy duty UV-protected zipties.....not sure they'll hold up long term tho, will wrap with heavy wire if they do fail.

Not sure the fence clips would work, might not quite reach across.

Definitely don't want to use the hog rings for pasting together, I agree, not fun.

Great idea on vise grips! especially good to think about where we will have the roof panels and the wall panels coming together, lots of sproing going on. Right, fence clips won't work.

Ok here's another thing-- at what point do we clad with hardware cloth? if we clad after pounding in the t-posts, the posts will be inside the hardware cloth (like our current temp coop has). It looks a bit less tidy and creates some wrinkles that need to be sewn shut. However, we did make it work. One wants the hardware cloth to be continuous wherever possible so cladding each panel separately is not a good solution, I wouldn't think. otoh, would the posts be given any additional strength by being inside the h.c.?
Ack, Oy Vey...yeah, huge issue.....hmmm....well....
Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is to clad the panels with HC first, then assemble.....have seen that done with 'typical' hoop coops too.
It'll be tricky tho with 48" HC and 50" panels.....2" gaps in HC would be partially 'covered' by posts....gaps could be spaced 1" on each edge of panel then might not really be an issue with egress....roof gaps, where there isn't a post, could be covered after assembly with a 4-6" wide strip of HC(not fun to cut, but doable.)

Where do the 10' 2x4s go?

For the 10' width you were thinking of trying....actually I guess you'd need 12' 2x4 to try the 10.38' width.

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote:
Right, I'm worried about the gaps created and the need to cover them, thus leading to more seams that need to be predator proofed. We'll have to clad over the t-posts.

Ah, right, duh! That was to experiment with 10' width, but we've decided against that. ok, thank you!

 

[aart]

We'll have to clad over the t-posts.

Might work out pretty good if you get the tops of the posts down below the curve of roof.
Might want to think about post placement in conjunction with HC width, so HC seams don't line up with posts.

 

[Molpet]

ACK! I've heard about that. I agree that having some metal on there would be good, and using it AFTERWARD to say, sew seams of hardware cloth together would be a great use of it. Definitely would want to get it into shape using zipties first.

Great links, thank you. Which of those would work for attaching 1/2" hardware cloth to cattle panels?

I had some size 2 that worked and when I ran out of those I used the size 3