Why Lift Is So Important - Moving A Hoop With Feedlines

posted on

January 13, 2026

One essential feature of adding a feed line system to a hoop is lift!

Without adding additional lift the additional weight of the feed reservoir on the front of your hoop with cause your runners on your hoop to dig into the ground and "plow" it up. 

In extremely wet conditions you can actually sink the entire front of your hoop (that was a bad day on the farm). As we designed our automatic feed line systems, it became very clear very quickly that we needed additional lift so as to prevent our hoops from making a journey to the center of the earth haha. 

Not only that, but we wanted this additional lift to work in all directions (not impeded moving the hoop from the rear or sharply side to side) and also not to endanger chickens on sharp turns. With those criteria the option of just putting additional runners under the bins went out the window. As those runners would make sharp turns much more difficult and if they were performed would also act like a scythe through a field of ripe chickens. Definitely not what we were looking for!

So we settled on wheels. In order to allow freedom of movement they are all directional and in order to ensure smooth farm operations every morning they are "never flat" tires. Which is to say they don't take air so they never get flat. 

With the adjustable mount we can get just the right amount of lift to allow our hoop and bins to move freely without "plowing", and our birds are not at risk of getting mowed down by extra skis. 

Best of all it allows the hoops to be moved easily even when the bins are full! It took us a few iterations before we got it right but the 6.0 Bin + feed system is a game changer (the 3.0 system is what is on most of our farm and it revolutionized things!). 

More from the blog

How We Water Our Chickens On Pasture

Now I will be the first to admit that the video quality leaves plenty to be desired but it does show the base framework of our system. Namely using 1500-1800 ft lengths of 3/4" HTPE Blue Poly Pipe with a male camlock fitting on each end (that way you never have the wrong end towed to the house vs the hydrant)All of the attachment ends for the pipe (to connect either to a hydrant or a PT1000) have a female end on them that way we can easily change ends as needed. We move the lenths of pipe around by tieing them to the hitch of a truck or atv and then just towing the whole length between fields. There is plenty of pressure to water groups of 3000 birds from a single hydrant. A key to this is that each hoop has a 40 gallon reservoir that gravity feeds the lines so that a drop in line pressure does not drop the pressure in any individual hoop (the reservoirs just fill up a little slower). These reservoirs also act as a heat sink for the water to sit and cool before it goes to the birds which is really important for above ground water line in the heat of Summer! The pex fittings (don't use pex pipe it is not UV rated and will degrade in the sun) give a tremendous amount of inexpensive customization and we have some other very interesting attachements for watering sheep, pigs and cattle as well (flexibility is key).I hope this gives you some inspiration for easy ways to up your own water distribution plan. 

Pig and Turkey Feeder Overview

 As you saw the Pig and Turkey Feeder allows you to add portable feed storage and additional durable feeder space to your farm operation with its 4500 lbs of feed capacity. No longer do you have to put up with 2nd rate pig and turkey feeders that are hard to move, hard to fill and waste too much feed from wastage and rain spoilage!  The Pasture Tek Turkey & Pig Feeder keeps your feed dry and prevents waste with interchangeable feed grills to fit either pigs or turkeys. It also has an adjustable feed slide to limit or increase feed flow.   It sits on skids so it can be easily towed and sports heavy duty D-links on all four corners so you can link multiple units together to further reduce the time it takes to move your feeders to fresh pasture.It also sports permanent fork mounts on the side so you can easily set it on a trailer and move it from farm to farm. The rain guard can be collapsed also for easy transport reducing the feeder to 4'x10' dimensions you can stack them double wide on a trailer to move farms if needed! The entire top is a water tight hinged lid which makes refilling a breeze and at only 6' tall it can easily be filled with augers or tote sacks.