In regards to Hoop Buildings?

Question

I have a small group of crossbred cattle and would like to spread out their calving dates throughout the year. I will keep the better heifers for breeding purposes and the remainder of the heifers and the steers I will feed out and sell to families in the area as "freezer beef". I wish to put up a "building" for calving and an area for feeding and loafing (during winter).

I have considered putting up a "hoop building" as they are much more reasonable in price and do not incur a property tax in our state. If you have used these type of buildings would you share your experiences as to their durability, style of footings ie. concrete or posts and any other suggestions that you may have in regards to this structure. Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

I'm going to address some things you didn't mean to have addressed first.

I raise meat goats.  I have over 100 goats, and a THRIVING market for them.  My customer base is so large I not only sell myself out, but I sell out a fellow goat farmer, who has 300 production does.

My goats kid twice a year, every year.  My fellow goat farmer has goats kidding three times in two years.

I'm trying to tell you I have a great deal of experience with selling dirrectly to customers (all animals are slaughtered here on my farm) and with the birthing cycles of  livestock.

If you try to breed cattle so you have calvings throughout the year, you are going to find yourself unhappy.  It will mean you will be virtually unable to leave your farm, because someone is always "about to drop a calf."  You will have to keep constant track of who you have vaccinated, wormed, castrated, dehorned, ect.  

It is much easier if the babies come in a group over a month or so, instead of spread out over the whole year.

You will also find that babies born in certain times of the year have different sets of problems.  For goat kids, the ones born in our extremely hard winters (down to as low as -68 F!!!) are in danger of freezing when they are born.  That means having to check on the mothers ever two hours around the clock, during winter kidding season.  I get a lot of kids with frostbit ears, and they end up loosing 1/2 of their ear.  But those kids grow like weeds, with virtually zero health problems.

Kids born in the summer do not need to be checked on, since they will not freeze.  But those kids grow very slowly, and I loose more to health problems.  Flies are also attracted to the umbilical cords, and the drainage coming from their dams after they give birth.  

If you spread your calving out over the year, you will have to learn an extremely wide range of problems you will need to deal with.  You will also need to make sure the feed is right for the mothers at all times.  That can be very hard to do, when a drought hits, or snow, or too much rain, ect.

If you spread your calving out like that, you spread out, and increase your problems also.

I use the hoop buildings.  I make hoop buildings by bowing over cattle panels and covering them with ultra heavy duty tarps.  The cattle panels make a much sturdier building than the PVC hoop buildings.    

Here's a link, so you can see pictures and get a general idea of what I'[m speaking of:

http://www.cherthollowfarm.com/blog/2008...

You can also build them a bit more perminant/sturdy, and taller, by putting in a base of cinder blocks, and hooping the cattle pannels on top of those.

All that said, hoop buildings will not stand up well to cattle.

Cattle rub, chew, l**k, scratch, ect on structures.  You might concider putting in cinder block sides, as high up as your cattle are able to scratch their heads and necks.  Then use some sort of hooped roof.  Even though the cattle will not be able to reach the roof, I still reccomend using cattle panels, instead of PVC.  It will stand up to high winds much better.

Check your local laws (sounds like you alread are).  In my area, if it doesn't have a cement floor, but rather just a dirt floor, the building is not concidered perminant.

Another way to do a hoop building would be to incorperate it as part of a fence.  Put up your hoop building, so all of the building is OUTSIDE the pasture where the cattle are, just so the opening is part of the fenceline.

Then inside the building, build a very solid, wood, or sturdy sheet metal, wall that protects the hoop building from being rubbed on by the cattle.  So your wall would be two short sides to the left and right, and one long side down the back of the shelter.

Another option is to forget hoop buildings, and go with slab lumber.  Slab lumber is cheap!  Slabs are the first cuts of wood that mills make on a tree.  They are uneven, have bark on one side, and varry in length.  Around here a huge bundle of slabs that need to be hauled home on a 24 foot flat bed trailer (completely filling it) are only $40.  That is ultra cheap construction matterial.  

You can sink four posts into the ground, and very easily build a slab shelter (helps to own a chainsaw to cut the slabs to the same length).  Slabs can even be overlapped for the roof, or you can use sheet metal for the roof.  

If sinking the posts makes it a taxable building where you are, build a frame (cube like) and nail your slabs to it.  If you design it right, you will even be able to move such a shelter about the pasture with a tractor then.

Hoop buildings are fantastic for chickens and rabbits.  Dogs are fine with them also.

Sheep and goats can, over time, ruin them.  Cattle and horses can destroy them in short order.

If you do go with some form of hoop building, you basically cannot stake it down enough.  At some point, some nasty high wind is going to rip through your farm....and try to make your hoop buildings into kites.  Of course the high winds are always when your stock is most in need of the shelter.

My husband bends rebar in half and then hammers it several feet into the ground.  The longer the shelter is going to be there, the more stakes we use.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 2

sounds like the bohemian girl has covered all the bases. i concur with her.