Need feedback on using electrical conduit and panel siding

[sattoritx]

We are renting our house currently and have plans to be in our first owned home with the next 2 year mark.

This poses the problem of needing to move the pen and coop to our new place effortlessly, and for our girls sake quickly....

Coop will be 6X4 (but hopefully 8X4)
Run will be 6X10- 8X10
The whole thing can be no taller than 6' (which is a neighboring cities rules just in case we move there..)

Some Ideas I have.....

making the coop removable from its wooden base/ small (3 sided) run that it will be sitting on. To make it less bulky and to help keep the girls contained on moving day... (ugh I hate moving)

because weight and needing to lift it may be a problem we are wanting to keep it as light as possible, in TX would we be able to get away with panel wood siding? We will have electrical running to it so my main worry is that something might be able to chew through the pressed wood siding and get one of our girls...

My husband "the contractor" got used bathroom stalls from fudruckers he wants to build it out of but I worry about the weight of those..... looks water proof though.

I am thinking of building panels for the run out of metal electrical conduit (like a dog kennel), cause it is light weight yet pretty durable.... being metal or even the PVC I can dig it in the ground 6 inches, of course that would mean I could make the panels 6'6"

Now some problems I am running into using the conduit is that I really wanted a door for me and the kids to enter, how do you build a door with conduit?
Will this be sturdy enough to keep out pests? Racoon, skunks, 50 lb sons who might try to get on top of it? or would wood just be better?

 

[SillyChicken]

Quote:
conduit may be stronger, but I wouldn't depend on anything being that sturdy to hold your boys!

 

[sattoritx]

Yes I was thinking about the kind of exterior paneling for sheds.....
good point about the PVC being too flexible...
guess against the shed where my boys may try to drop from on top of the run isn't a good spot..
One parachuted off the shed with my beach umbrella this week.

 

[NellaBean]

You may want to look into a hoop house type setup. Google it or search on here.......you can make one with hog panels OR with PVC pipe as the hoops.......can also make a combo between pvc conduit for hoops and some wood for structure and strength. I have made small and large coops with 2x4.....so darn heavy. I made the last small coop with 2x2. Once you add the plywood, it is definitely strong enough.....

So in your case, you may want to make a 4x6 or 4x8 simple coop, using 2x2s and thin plywood or exterior siding. If framed correctly, it would be strong enough. And then a 8x10 or 8x12 hoop house.

 

[RocketDad]

One way to make "knock down" structures is to join panels with door hinges. Look for the kind you can drive the hinge pins out of rather than the ones that are fixed. I've used that to make "truck dumpsters" in the past. It's sorta like stagehand scenery: you line up the panels and slide/pound the hinge pins into place. The first time you build it you screw the hinges into the plywood, but after that it's just a hammer and a nail-set to tear it down, and just the hammer to put it back together.

I don't see any benefit to using conduit for the coop. For the run, maybe, but the added hassle of trying to get a hinged door onto the thing would outweigh any convenience of weight or cost.

If the bathroom stall dividers are the solid plastic kind, those might work great, but if they're thick Formica-covered panels they'll be way too heavy and won't hold up well - the core of those kind are particle board. They might make a great floor, though.

For the coop walls, plywood or OSB works great. You can use T-111 (the stuff that's grooved and textured to look like boards) for a bit more "formal" approach - looks less like an improvised structure and more like something intentional. Slap a bit of 1x2 around the corners and doorway, and use a different color of paint for a nice but easy "trimmed out" look, regardless of what you use for walls. It will also stiffen the edges of thin plywood (like 1/4" mentioned by someone else) and give you more "meat" to put screws into for any hardware.

Mis-tint paints are your friend.

 

[sattoritx]

I wouldnt even think about trying to use conduit as structural beams I can imagine that would be a nightmare, I was thinking of using 2x4 in the coop with panel siding. The coop itself would sit on a 2' tall run with ground contact 4x4 PT wood legs. Good point about the stalls it is the laminate wood kind....

I was thinking about the conduit for the run area for lightweight use but your hinge/ pin ideas are awesome.

I love the look of wood framed runs but just couldn't think about how to go about making them detachable and yet still sturdy. Silly me I was thinking hook and eye.
There was someone on the austin funky chicken coop tour that had a fairly large coop/ run that was movable. I knew I should have paid more attention to how it broke down.

 

[jenjscott]

I really like the idea of putting it together with hinges. You could make the wood frames like you want and use the hinges.