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| I have a 50x104 hoop that I've lambed in for 12 years. This is in southwestern Pennsylvania.
If set up right, ventilation is superior to any "box" building and the light during the day creates a natural type environment that I feel is healthier for the animals. With a manure pack, daytime summer temps in the barn are at most 3-4 degrees above outside air temp and winter night temp differences in the barn are 5 to 10 degrees warmer, with the exception of huge outside night time temperature drops, then the gap is usually 10-15 degrees warmer in the barn. Winter daytime temps in the barn will often be 10 to 15 degrees above outside temps depending on how I've adjusted the ventilation and the amount of sun that day. I've always looked forward to these daytime spikes because the lambs always seem to perk up more then. Since I monitor the temeratures with a wireless thermometer in my shepherd's room with the 3 remotes placed in and outside, the above numbers are accurate at my locale.
The main drawback that I see now is that hoop buildings are priced almost up there with a pole building. At the time I built mine it was about a 1/3 the cost of a pole barn package (and also just more than a 1/3 of what the hoop kits cost now.)
Although, I would build one again for livestock use, I doubt that I would for anything else except maybe hay storage. As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of getting bids for a machine shed and I've already eliminated hoop buildings because of cost and because of the "engineering" and extra work that goes into enclosing them.
If you've decided that you want to go the hoop route let me know and I'd be happy to give you more input. When I built mine, I was one of the first in the area to enclose it and use it for year-round livestock use, so the distributor would send potential customers around to view mine and talk, so I can probably answer any questions or concerns.
BTW, I have a 30x40 wood pole barn I use for lambing also, but only in an overflow situation when I don't want to disturb the pen populations in the hoop barn with late season lambers. Before I had the hoop, I lambed for years in my current machine shed, with metal sides and roof, and I would just as soon lamb outside than go back to that. | |
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hoop building for sheep
