Portable hoop house for providing baby chicks pasture in the winter

[ella&clara]

Hi all
I thought you'd be interested in my blog post about how I'm providing my Jumbo X Cornish Cross chicks pasture in November (and getting them out of my garage!!) Having 17 3 week old chicks in my garage is NOT a good idea. I wouldn't have waited so late to get them, but due to some circumstances beyond my control and my own impatience to do this project this fall, I went ahead and ordered them. This hoop house is helping to solve the problem, although it's a lot of work (but only for a few weeks).

 

[mminer13]

We're looking to do the same thing. Our babies will be a week old tomorrow, and are currently residing in three brooders in our living room/kitchen with a dozen in each. They are quickly outgrowing the brooders, and we're trying to figure out what to do with them next. My husband built a hoop house in one of our fenced in garden areas, and I need to get one of those wireless thermometers so that we can monitor the temperature from inside throughout the day to see what adjustments we need to make to keep it warmer. (I don't think we'll have your problem with it being too hot, they're calling for snow Thursday night where we are.)

Glad to know where not the only ones nuts enough to start this late in the season. We butchered our older layers, along with some of our neighbor's roosters, and a few "peckers" he had caught (He said he hasn't had an egg loss since we took those four) and we liked the process so much (as weird as that sounds) that we decided we didn't want to wait till spring to do a batch of broilers. We'll see how it goes...

 

[ella&clara]

I love to figure out how to conquer the seasons! One thing with snow I'd be concerned about, having had it collapse some hoop houses over my vegetables before, is the weight of the snow on top of the plastic. You'd need a sturdy structure to hold up the plastic under the weight of the snow. However, if you keep the chickens inside the house while the snow is actually falling, and the hoop houses up to cover the ground, then move them outisde when it's sunny after the storm, they could benefit from the protected area. I also hung some heat lamps in area too, to give them some warmth., I made sure to keep the lamps away from the plastic. Outside, the temperature was about 50 degrees though. They were fine in that situation but I don't know how cold your temperatures will fall. I enjoy living in South Carolina