Independence Homestead

In Part 1 of this series I posted the considerations we take into consideration in our pig housing. In Part 2 I detailed the first pig houses we made. Today in Part 3 I will detail our second pig house design, a hoophouse!

Here are some prior posts about hoophouses for more tips and tricks:

Building a Hoop House: Part 1

Duck Hoop House

The Hoophouses

We now have 2 hoophouses that we utilize as pig houses. One thing we like about this design is that it’s universal. These houses have served goat, ducks, and chickens before. They could easily return to being used for these other animals, too.

Dimensions and Framework

The hoophouses are made with a 2×4 base and cattle panel roof/sides. The houses use 2 cattle panels next to each other, so they’re 8ft deep. The back can be made of a cattle panel or field fencing/horse fencing. For the base, we use screws and brackets to reinforce the corners. The hoop exerts a notable amount of outward pressure, that’s how it stays up, but that requires strong corners. We use fencing staples to attach the cattle panel to the base.

The cattle panel was cut to about 11ft before assembly, and that makes a hoop about 4ft high when the house is about 5ft wide. We cut the cattle panel with a metal cutting blade on our circular saw.

For the back we have used both the piece of cattle panel cut off and fencing to make a solid rear wall.

Roof and Sides

The roof and sides are simply the cattle panel covered by tarps. Zip ties easily hold the tarps onto the cattle panels.

The pigs periodically ruin the tarps by biting/pulling/rubbing them. Tarps are inexpensive at Harbor Freight, so we just add a new layer of tarps periodically.

How it Works

Right now our American Guinea Hogs have one hoophouse and two triangular shelters to use. All eight of them (plus 7 piglets!) choose to pile into the one hoophouse and the triangular shelters sit empty. They seem to prefer the hoophouse, and I believe it is because this house is large enough for all the pigs to live together.

I hope this short series about pig houses helps you in caring for your pigs!