One of the reasons that I'm interested in hoophouses as a basic farm building is that they're darned useful. If you need a roof over your head, or to store stuff, or to grow things, or to shelter animals, they're pretty nice. In the picture above we've got an earlier batch of replacement
gilts in the small hoophouse. My only problem with this particular hoophouse is that we have to rebed it by hand. You can see that it gets a bit wet around the water dishes, and in this case the pigs have chosen to dung against the back wall, so that's a bit sloppy, too.
Later, some laying hens that are molting. We bring in 2x4s to provide roosting for these girls. Without feathers it gets kinda chilly. They appreciate the shelter.
That top picture was a while ago; here's the same pig, about 3 times the size and about ready to become a mom.
and her buddies. They all got a great head start by having better shelter when they were younger. That's one of the reasons I'm working on another hoophouse. Better winter housing.
We plumbed hog nipples through the side, we watered from the outside, barrel gravity feed to the nipples, and that really cut down chore time and wetness inside. When it is cold they didn't seem to play with the nipples very much and run water like in the summer. Just a thought.
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