Coop/house design

[MrPoet74]

Hi all. New to the forums and chickens. My wife and I are building a new coop for our 15 hens. The entire structure is a 10x20 foot hoop house. The structure will be covered to keep the weather out. The question I have is do I need to build a fully enclosed hen house in there for them to go or can I put up some partial walls with roosts and boxes in the back 4x10 section with a solid back wall? I live in southwest fl so cold is not an issue here except a few nights a year. Wind can be but for anything that severe we have back up plans.
Thank you in advance for your help

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Plenty of people in hotter areas use open air coops. The main thing you will want to do is make sure they have a place to sleep that is protected from rain, drafts if it does get cold, and predators.

 

[MrPoet74]

Thank you for your reply. Very helpful.

 

[Dmontgomery]

You don't have to have a walled off section. In your extreme heat, you want as much flow through ventilation as possible. As mentioned already you want protection from the rain mostly and you are already doing that.
It isn't going to get cold enough to hurt your chickens but the cold with wind combined could be uncomfortable for them in January and February. I use hay bails to block the north wind during the "winter" here. If your hoop coop is pointed open end east to west, you won't even need that.
How did you cover the coop? Tarp across the top all the way to the ground?

 

[MrPoet74]

Yes, I am going to be using tarp. I may try vinyl roofing panels if I can attach them to the curve of the hoop without issue.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Yes, I am going to be using tarp. I may try vinyl roofing panels if I can attach them to the curve of the hoop without issue.

I put vinyl roofing on my newest coop and one thing I don't like about them is that in high winds the vinyl can break free of the fasteners, so make sure you use a lot of anchor points to attach it to the hoop and/or try to have your fasteners cover as much surface area. If you do decide to go with a tarp, don't bother with the heavy duty one, because if you get winds like I do, that too will end up being torn up eventually so then you just have a more expensive busted tarp to recycle or throw away. I have taken to just buying them at Harbor Freight or our local overstock type store. The one we have here is called Ollies but when I lived in Mississippi we had Treasure Hunt, I think it's called. I think most areas usually have something similar. I just mention these things because I am in the middle of open farmland and we will have periods of high winds several times a year so I have had to really figure out what stands up to it best.