Our latest chicken coop is a hoop house style made from an old greenhouse frame, with hog panel sides and salvaged tin for the front and back wall. We wrap it in 9 mil plastic for weather proofing.

There are runner boards (or skids) along the bottom on both long sides. This means we can drag it around the field as needed–something we do weekly. That also gives us something to fasten the plastic to in the winter. At the top of the hog panel wall on each side are 2×4 supports, inside and outside. They are bolted together, sandwiching in the hog panel. This gives us something to fasten the plastic to in the summer, as well as giving the wire walls some additional steadiness since it has to move around a lot.

In the winter, we wrap the plastic all the way to the ground and it stays cozy warm in there like a greenhouse. We haven’t had frozen chicken water in two years. In the summer, we can roll the plastic up to the halfway point. The top coverage keeps the rain off, but the sides let plenty of fresh air in.

Their nesting boxes are screwed to the back wall. They have two perches running diagonally from the back wall out to the side supports. And their feeder and water can both be hung from the original greenhouse cross-support beams to be off the ground–this helps with cleanliness as well as moving day!

There are pros and cons to this type of chicken house.

On the Positive Side…

It’s versatile with the season. We can give more fresh air exposure, or less as needed. It stays warm in the winter without needing any heating elements. We can provide extra shade in the summer by hanging a tarp inside, while they still get plenty of sunshine and Vitamin D from the sides being open.

It provides a lot of fresh air and green grass. We rotate regularly, usually weekly. They have all the pasture grass to enjoy. Bugs and creepy-crawlies can still get through the wire sides for snacking. And there’s the occasional cow paddy to disassemble.

It’s easy to keep clean. Just move it regularly in the good weather months, or park it somewhere in bad weather months and bed it down with straw or hay. When the weather gets nice again, move again and your bedding pile becomes a compost pile. We actually feed the cows a big round bale of hay and then move the chicken house right over top of the feeding spot. That gives them the start of bedding, plus something fun to dig through for a while.

It keeps the chickens generally safe and accounted for. No one is laying eggs on the tractor seat or getting stuck behind the stove in the garage. They’re sheltered from birds of prey (one of our biggest issues around here). And on nice days, we can leave the door open and they can free-range under supervision until dusk. We can also keep track of all the eggs, since that’s how the chickens pay their way. {smile}

On the Negative Side…

The structure is sound, but the plastic is not hurricane proof. Or nor-easter proof. And a tropical storm can mess it up too. The point is, the plastic is not a permanent solution. We replace our hoop house plastic a couple times a year. A roll usually gets us an entire year and it’s about $100 a roll. We think that’s a pretty good deal, but it’s something to be aware of. In addition, I don’t think one person could change the cover by themselves. We use all hands available {smile} and every. single. one. is useful to get it done efficiently. Two people could do it, but more is definitely easier!

It requires a truck or tractor to move. We have a truck. And a tractor. So this isn’t a big deal for us. But necessity is the mother of all invention. If you had to make it hand moveable, you’d need to do some modifications to the size.

Rotating requires extra maintenance. Moving around all the time means the structure can take a beating. You have to find a balance in construction between being stable, and being immovable. So you lighten here and compromise there, and you find yourself having to re-attach the perches regularly because they fall down while moving. Or constantly adjusting the door hinges because they rattle loose. We check over everything each time we move it but usually do a little maintenance overhaul each time we change the cover.

It’s not predator-proof. On that note, I’d like to say that I don’t think anything is and people sink a lot of money into creating Fort Knox, only to find that they missed one little rat hole and lost half their flock. We put chicken wire on the inside of the hog panels to make sure the chickens couldn’t get out and that stops the average opossum, possibly an unmotivated raccoon. But any truly motivated, mid-size predator could get in if they really wanted to. We rely on other strategies to try to compensate.

The chicken house is in with the cows and sheep, so that keeps some predators away. It’s inside the electric fence, which also helps. Another help is that, because the chickens are contained, our dogs can safely run around and mark the whole field and all around the chicken house, to deter predators. Finally, the top is enclosed, so it definitely keeps out birds of prey. We’ve found a couple slices where I think a hawk or owl was trying to get in, but didn’t and gave up. We patched those with duct tape until it was time to change the cover.

It’s not “free range.” Ok, I’m not sure how much of a negative this is, but it’s worth mentioning. “Free range” is a buzzword at the moment and matters to a lot of customers. We’ve done completely free-range, as well as completely confined with an enclosed chicken run, and just about every semi-free-range version in between. With a few more years under my belt as a farmer now, I think completely free-range is a little overrated (and misunderstood) and semi-free-range works well for both us and the chickens.

They still get lots of fresh air, clean eating, bugs, green grass, no medicated feed, etc. And me? I get to skip cleaning my porch off every two days, no one accidentally gets hit by a car or killed by a dog, and I never get surprised by piles of rotten eggs under the bush hog. And we all still enjoy amazing, farm-fresh eggs! See? Win-win!

You’ll find a lot more chicken and chicken coop posts and pictures on our Chickens and Ducks page. Chickens are one of the earliest farm chores our kiddos ever had and those quirky little birds give us a lot of joy around here!

How are things at your home place?