Building a Hoop Coop

One of our farm projects over the last couple weekends has been to build a “hoop coop” for the meat birds.  Our intent is to use it as a chicken tractor for them.

After doing some research, Bengt settled on roughly using this design.  I think in part because we already had the necessary stock panels.  We use them for creating temporary pastures for the goats occasionally and have plans to use them more permanently in the future.

Our parts list:

• 5 1×4’s ($3.82 each)
• 4 2×4’s ($2.76 each)
• 1 box of medium fence nails ($3.24)
• 1 box of large fence nails ($3.34)

Grand total of $40.10 with tax.  I don’t remember how much the stock panels actually cost us, and the poultry netting, zip ties, hinges, and latch are things we always seem to have around.  I think we also came out with an extra 1×4.

We still need to put up the tarps, roosts, complete the front wall with poultry netting, and add a “handle” for the tractor to pull it.  Unfortunately we also realized that we did the bottom wrong and will need to add skids.  The plan is for the meat birds to move in to the hoop coop this next weekend.  I’m a little nervous because it’s been getting relatively cold at night still and this design provides less protection from the colder temperatures than the range house.