How We Built a Low-Maintenance Chicken Coop That Changed Everything

🐓 How It Started: A Duck, A Coop, and a Kid Who Couldn't Let Go

I still remember the day my dad said yes to chickens.

Back then, we searched the newspaper classifieds and called people on our landline. That’s how we found a local farmer with bantam pullets for sale. We loaded up the car and headed out.

She had the birds ready when we arrived, but she also offered a tour of her farm. I was so excited and couldn’t resist meeting all the animals.

That’s when I noticed a small cage near her chicken coop with two ducklings inside. Their heads and feet had been badly pecked. She told us she had tried to place them with a broody hen after the mother duck abandoned them. It didn’t go well.

She offered them to me and I begged my parents until they reluctantly said yes.

That’s how I became a duck mama.

I nursed those ducks back to health. I brought them inside when no one was looking to let them swim in the bathtub. I was convinced they were lonely even though they had chicken friends.

Those first bantams were flighty and not the sharpest birds, but we loved checking on them. Finding our first egg felt like winning the lottery! My sister and I even tried to hatch one under a lamp with a warm towel. We didn’t quite understand how it all worked back then.

As much as we loved having chickens, none of us enjoyed taking care of the coop. It was short and cramped. We had to stoop inside just to gather eggs or replace feed and water. Cleaning it was even worse and all three of us kids fought over whose turn it was.

Over time, we just weren’t as interested in keeping up with it. We got older, started doing our own things, and stopped replacing birds. Eventually, we were down to one duck named Waddles.

That chapter ended, but the story wasn’t over.

🐣 A New Season

Years later, after college and marriage, my husband and I moved back to the family farm with our daughter.

My aunt came to visit from Hawaii and showed me pictures of her free-range flock. She mentioned a chicken catalog and I ordered one out of curiosity.

My daughter, who was nonspeaking at the time, fell in love with it.

She carried it everywhere. She even slept with it at night and we spent hours looking through it together.

I wanted to get her chickens, but I also knew we couldn’t go back to the old way of doing things. I needed a better system. One that wouldn’t leave me buried in cleanup or chores.

🛠 Why We Built the Hoop Coop

My dad and I started researching pasture-based chicken keeping. We began with a traditional chicken tractor and saw right away how much better it was to raise birds on fresh grass.

Healthier birds. Less work, but still not quite right.

The tractor had its downsides and our wheel systems failed over time. We needed something simpler.

We started sketching ideas and testing designs. What came from that was our hoop coop.

It wasn’t a product at the time. It was a solution. A way to raise chickens without the stress, mess, or heavy lifting.

Now we’ve used this system for years. We’ve moved it across dry summer grass and muddy spring pastures. We’ve made updates as we’ve gone. Eventually, we decided to turn what worked for us into something that could help other families too.

💬 Want a Simpler Way to Keep Chickens?

Tired of messy runs, constant cleanup, or systems that just don’t last?

The Hoop Coop was our solution and now it’s worked for thousands of families across the world, from Australia to Norway.

✅ Moves easily across pasture

✅ Healthier, cleaner birds

✅ Low-maintenance and beginner-friendly

✅ Built to last with real-world testing behind it

We turned our exact setup into detailed blueprints and a step-by-step build video so you can skip the trial and error. In fact, one wrong cut could pay for the cost of the plans!

Click here to check out the Hoop Coop Blueprints and start raising chickens the simpler way.

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