Permanent Hoop Coop In Progress_Update!!! See Post #34!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Beekissed]

Found great places for clear tarps!

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/clear-tarp

http://www.tarpsplus.com/clear-poly-tarps-singles.html

 

[Sandrachx]

Have you gotton any snow since you put it up. (Do you ever get snow?) I love that idea, we have a metal roofed run that I had to shovel off a few times this winter as the snow load was WAY too heavy. Just wondering if it would slide off...

thought i'd jump in here. we live in michigan and have had the hardest winter in 20 years (2013-2014) with both snow load and cold temps. we put a similar hoop house on the end of our coop so the girls would have some space to hang out when the snow was over their heads. it has worked great, offering them a dry, draft free area. we hooped the cattle fence (2), laid the canvas from a pop up farmer market tent over the top to drape about 1/4 down the hoop (it's framework destroyed by the wind from the spring weather), and then laid heavy grade clear plastic over that to allow light inside.
we close it up at night so body heat stays in the actual coop and then open it for the entire day. one of the best DIY projects we've done for the chickens.

 

[Sandrachx]

I am going to convert my 2 hoop coops my SIL built into one large one similar to yours. I just need to figure out more about the huddle box & nesting box areas & how to combine the 2 coops. We've used them for the summer, since we live in North Dakota. I've been keeping the chickens in my husbands garage (taking up half of it) & he wants them out & I can't blame him. We have Chantecler chickens (a Canadian breed so they can handle the cold). DH made me a very large huddle box perch area that was insulated, so I have to probably cut it down in size a bit for it to fit. I love the snow photo, it helped me talk DH into using the hoop coops, so he can have his garage back. There is so much for us to figure out to make work for our area, but I am very inspired after seeing your permanent hoop coop.
You did a fantastic job & it is very inspiring.

what is a huddle box?

 

[terri1nd]

Where they will actually sleep free from drafts especially in the winter. (We get down to -35*F in the winters, so they will be huddled together)
As an example https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/264323/pictures-of-roost-huddle-boxes-please/30

 

[skyhawk333]

I liked yours so well, I decided to build my own. It's almost finished with only two days of work. I ordered my hardware cloth and I will be done. Mine looks identical to yours except I attached it to a 8x16 coop and I'm just using my hoop as a run. The hoop is 8x20. I wonder how many chickens I could have in there.

 

[Beekissed]

My sister uses the huddle boxes for her chickens and she drapes a blanket over the front of them....only problem with that is it traps all the humidity in that area and the chickens suffer horrible frost bite as a result. I can't seem to get her to understand that the tighter you buckle down their space in cold temps, the more frost bite is going to occur. Cold is bad enough, but cold and wet~from their breath and body humidity settling back down onto their combs and wattles~is a death knell.

 

[enola]

I was wondering about frost bite. I would rather my chickens suffered a little chill than frost bite.