Two to four hens, standing on grass the whole time
This tractor has no floor anywhere. The closed end, where the birds roost and lay, sits on the same grass as the run. That is the single biggest difference between it and our A-frames, which put a plywood floor under the coop section.
The spec table gives 14 square feet of coop and 20 square feet of run for 2-4 hens. At four birds that is 3.5 square feet each under cover and 5 in the run. At two it is a roomy 7 and 10. The one roost bar is 46-1/2 inches long, which seats four at 10 inches a bird, so the roost and the floor agree on the same ceiling.
Floorless changes the routine. There is no droppings tray to pull and no floor bedding to strip. Instead, the manure stays on the lawn when you move the tractor, and the grass under the closed end gets the heaviest load. Move it on a regular schedule and that is a feature. Leave it parked and it becomes a wet, fouled patch with birds sleeping on it.
What it costs against the A-frames
| Design | Coop | Run | Hens | Build time | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4x8 A-frame tractor | 10 sq ft | 16 sq ft | 2–3 | 14–20 hrs | $675–$875 |
| 4x10 hoop (this one) | 14 sq ft | 20 sq ft | 2–4 | 12–16 hrs | $1,000–$1,300 |
| 6x10 A-frame tractor | 19 sq ft | 33 sq ft | 4–6 | 22–30 hrs | $800–$1,025 |
Read the table honestly. The hoop costs more than the bigger A-frame while holding fewer birds. If price per hen is the deciding factor, the 6x10 wins and it isn’t close.
What the hoop wins is time. At 12-16 hours it is the only tractor we draw that is a single weekend, against two weekends for the 4x8 and three for the 6x10. It is 14 steps and 27 material line items. If the weekend matters more than the money, and you will keep four hens or fewer, this is the one.
Against the smaller 4x8 A-frame, the hoop costs $325-$425 more. That buys one more hen of capacity, 4 more square feet of cover, 4 more of run, and a build that is a few hours shorter. For two or three hens and a tight budget, the A-frame is the better deal. For a fourth hen, or if you only have one weekend, the hoop earns its price.
Why it goes together in a weekend
You never measure a curve. Each wooden arch is six identical straight segments cut off one saw setting, laid out flat on the ground and checked against a table of straight tape pulls. The cattle panels are marked by counting the welded stays, one every 8 inches along the panel, not with a tape.
There are only three arches, at the closed end, at the coop and run partition, and at the door end. Two 16-foot cattle panels, each cut in half, make the three hoops with no offcut. The panels are listed at roughly $27-$43 and 44 lb each, and bending one onto the base is a two-person job. The plan is blunt about that: a half panel is a spring until both feet are down.
Buy the panels before anything else and check the length. The plan works only with a 16-foot panel cut in half. A whole panel bent to the same 48-inch base balloons far wider than the frame it is meant to sit on.
One door, and everything goes through it
The only door is at the run end, a 24 by 26 inch opening cut into the end sheathing, swinging out. The closed end is solid plywood. The plan’s egg access is a sloped lid on the nest bank, reached from inside the door, and the nests sit at the far, closed end so the hens have the dark they want to lay in.
That is the awkward part of this footprint, and it is worth walking through on paper before you commit. Feeding, watering, catching a bird and collecting eggs all happen through one small door at one end. On a tractor for two to four hens that is workable. If you want a hinged side panel or a stand-up cleanout, the A-frames give you that and the hoop does not.
The barrier is the cloth, not the panel
A cattle panel’s grid is roughly 6 by 8 inches. A hen walks out through that and a raccoon walks in. The plan treats the steel as the frame and the hardware cloth as the barrier: three courses of half-inch cloth up and over the hoop, lapped and wired every 4 inches, with the bottom edge trapped under a screwed batten on each skid rather than relying on staples.
The plan is careful about what is sourced and what is not. Wire carried tight down to a solid base rail comes from Kentucky’s extension hoop pen, ASC-189. Corner stakes come from ATTRA. The 12-inch skirt of cloth laid flat on the grass around the outside is builder practice, not extension guidance, and the plan labels it that way. Build it if digging predators are active where you live. The batten detail and the corner stakes are the parts not to skip. The predator-proofing guide covers how that pressure varies.
A tarp over the roost, open sky over the run
The closed end, about 35 square feet of hoop, is covered with a heavy tarp or roll roofing, trapped under battens rather than bungeed. The run is left bare by design. A fully covered hoop turns into a greenhouse with chickens in it.
There is no vent to cut and none to screen. The closed section is open along its whole cross section into the run, and that joint is the ventilation. The plan’s siting advice follows from that: park the tractor with the closed end into the prevailing wind, so the weather hits plywood and tarp, not the open side. The chicken tractor guide covers how often to move a tractor and how much ground to plan for.
What this design deliberately does not do
It is not a winter coop. A tarp over grass, with an open joint into a mesh run, is a fair-weather shelter. Where winters are long and hard, plan on housing the birds somewhere solid for that stretch.
It is not a stand-up coop. You work through one door at the run end and you are bending to do it.
It does not have a buried apron and cannot. A floorless tractor that moves is exactly what digging predators look for, which is why the corner stakes are drawn as a step and not a suggestion. If you are after a pen that stays in one place, a static coop with a buried apron is the better tool.