Better Than Chicken Tractors:
Hoophouse Chicken Coops for Pastured Poultry

by Robert Plamondon robert@plamondon.com

The Mark I hoop coop. The coop is pulled by hand downhill to a new patch of grass, once or twice per day. The Mark II hoop coop, not shown, has the open end facing the direction of travel so the operator can see inside while moving the pen. This reduces the number of broilers that get run over by the back wall.

A Hand-Portable Chicken Coop You Can Stand Up In

My wife Karen invented these simple chicken houses a couple of years ago, when she decided she wanted a pen she could walk around in, rather than the standard Salatin-style pens that are only two feet high. These pens are made from with lightweight cattle panels bent into a semicircle, attached to a wooden bottom frame, and covered with a tarp. The ends are framed with wood, with the entrance in the front end.

Easy Construction

Lightweight stock panels are made out of heavily galvanized wire and are 16 feet long and about 4 1/2 feet high. They cost between $12 and $17 at local farm stores. We use two-panel coops to make a roughly 8'x9' coop with a ridge height of about six feet. This is good for between 50 and 75 broilers if you butcher them all at once. We butcher them over a period of two weeks, always choosing the largest birds, and in this case the coop is good for up to 100 broilers, with care.

The panels are attached to the wooden frame with large galvanized staples. We use 2x4 lumber for the bottom frame and 1x4 lumber for the end framing. Diagonal bracing on the bottom frame, visible in the photo, is important to prevent the coop from racking itself to pieces.

A partially framed Mark II hooop coop, with the bottom frame and back wall framing in place, but no diagonal bracing or front end yet. Note that the bottom frame consists of two skids (in contact with the ground) and two sills (on top of the skids). This particular coop suffers from excessive amounts of sag in the sills, which should have been installed on edge.

The back end is covered with a tarp up almost to the top. A gap is left at the top of the rear wall to let hot air escape. The front is kept entirely open, covered only with chicken wire. This should be heavy-duty 1" chicken wire, preferably Red Brand. 2" turkey wire doesn't last. Neither do cheap brands of wire. The easiest method of attaching the chicken wire is to use plastic tie wraps.

It's best to use chicken wire on all four sides of the coop, going at least 2' high on the sides and 4' on the front and rear. If you are going to raise turkeys in these pens, then the wire should go all the way to the top on the front and rear, and 4' up on the sides. Additional 1x4's should be added front and rear as well, to provide crash barriers to prevent the turkeys from working the chicken wire loose by jumping against it.

The door should be arranged as a lift-out hatch rather than hinged. It is our experience that doors quickly get ripped off their hinges.

The tarps can be attached to the wood framing with a staple gun and to the panels with plastic tie wraps.

Can Be Moved Daily for Pastured Poultry

The coop needs to be mounted on skids. That is, only two walls should be in contact with the ground. The others should be at least 1 1/2" off the ground. 3 1/2" is better. If the front and rear walls drag on the ground, the coop is very difficult to move and quickly becomes damaged. Also, broilers who are caught by the back wall tend to be crushed if it is dragging on the ground, but pop through unharmed to the outside if it is elevated. Flaps on the two elevated walls, made from old feed sacks, lengths of tarp, or rubber floor-mat material, will close off the gap and help keep predators out and broilers in.

Cover It With Tarps

The top of the hoophouse needs to be 100% waterproof. Away from the top, as the slope of the sides increases, the water has less tendency to drip though even if there is a hole. Thus a high-quality silver top covering the top third of the roof, plus a cheap top covering the rest, will work almost as well as the more expensive option of a silver tarp over everything.

Click here for a detailed description of a Mark II hoop coop (PDF format).

Chicken Coop Plans

Open Chicken Coops Work Best, Even in Winter! Don't be fooled by people who say that chickens need to be shut up tight all winter: an outdoor lifestyle is what the chickens need, year-round. And if they can't go outside, they still need a light, airy, well-ventilated chicken coop. The chicken coop plans on the market want you to build dank and stuffy chicken dungeons, which is exactly what they don't need. Instead, you should read Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, the bible of open-air chicken coops for all climates. This book is an oldie but a goodie, going into every detail and answering every objection. Everyone who has raised free-range or pasture poultry know how much they thrive with an outdoor lifestyle. Fresh-Air Poultry Houses shows you how the right housing can cling to these benefits even when the chickens have to stay indoors. Highly recommended.

Back to the Free-Range Poultry Page.