Homemade V.S. Store Bought

[Lazy Farmer]

Remember the days before Cell Phone Addiction, credit cards and K Mart was King of retail? Way past that. Before Credit Cards, Strip Malls, Convenience Stores, Bottled water? Wow. The things that made us soft. Spoiled. Relying on Retail Proprietors to make our lives simple?
Ingenuity is a lost art. Self sub stainability if now replaced by simply driving from our Air Condition Homes in our Air Conditioned Cars to a Air Conditioned Retail Store to purchase products to make life easier.
OK. Here is the premise of this thread.
Post any project you created. Doesn't matter if someone else though of it first. As long as you made it from scratch or junk laying around. Bought the many parts but still put it together. Something that got you away from your cell phone, TV, 450 satellite channels.
Show your pride and inspire others to stop buying China crap designed by Americans but built by cheep labor when we are perfectly capable of making something for ourselves if we are inspired.
I will post various gadgets and stuff we saved money on by making them ourselves. But it's not just the money, it's Americans still exist in the ambitious creative perspective.
I look forward to all of the pride of your creative passion.
Or just watch t.v. and let the world turn without you. Ha ha?
Farmer Connie is waiting and building..

 

[Sunny-Side Up]

I don't know if paintings count, but doing it yourself is a lot better than buying a picture or copy of a painting at the store!

The last one is what I'm currently working on - a picture of my chicks!

***PLEASE DO NOT copy any of these pictures for any reason

 

[FatHenAssociation]

My husband and I built our coop out of a wooden swing-set that was already in our yard when we bought our house. We ended up building an extension for the hen house, but other than that it's stayed the basic A-frame.

 

[cavemanrich]

I do not watch much TV except for weather updates and occasionally documentaries. I do enjoy PBS programs like Nature and Nova. The rest of my free time I spend with my pets. Work around the home improving/fixing things. I also enjoy re purposing things. I did many things such and here is one notable one.

Transformed a Lil Tykes playhouse into a coop for my chickens. Plastic lasts a long time and my cost was basically my time only. Materials were leftover scrap type items. The playhouse was also a post played item that was destined for recycling.
I will post other things as I get the photos. Some things are just improvements to existing things.
This is something I DO ENJOY

Does this qualify for this thread?

 

[MillersFarm]

Hi! I'm so glad you made this thread.

I take after my dad and love to build things! I don't spend much time on the TV or computer or phones and what not, I'm mostly outside with my chickens and building stuff, The only problem is i'm not old enough to find many jobs that i would be able to work at and i don't have a good paying job to buy things i would need to build with,
So i started going through our second "Hay loft" Which holds most of our junk wood. I really wish I took pictures while building my brooding box but i just only have pics of after it was finished. I was so proud when i finished the brooder since this was one of the first things I've made properly by myself, I had one broody hen hatch a clutch of 16 chicks in it already and have another hatching a clutch of eight duck eggs which are currently hatching now! Anyways, enough about that! Here is a pic I took of the build I'll try and get more~

(Had to put a towl over it so other birds wouldn't mess up the roof)

 

[Lazy Farmer]

We built a manual door opener out of an empty spool that came with the hot wire for our swine pins.
A short piece of rebar for the axle. Installed it into a 2X8 mounted the board to the corner of the hen house. Drilled whole at the end and added a flat washer and a pin to hold the spool crank on. Added a bolt and 2 nuts with a rubber tube wrapping the bolt. The small bolt is the crank handle.
View media item 7892693Had a long run of cord left over from the clothes line wrapped to the crank. Cord goes straight up to a pulley and across the super long stretch to the opposite end of the house where the tiny entrance / exit door is located.
View media item 7892694Another pulley at the other end and shot the cord down to the door. Crank the spool in one direction the door opens.. The other way it closes.
View media item 7892695 Added a slide bolt to the front of the crank to lock it open in the mornings and to drop the door at dusk. The birds are free to come and go and we don't have to walk a mile around a 250 fence and open a gate, walk across the run to let them out anymore.

Total cost was $5 for the pulleys. Everything else was reused instead of spending money that could go for feed and meds. Made in USA!!


Here it is being used after a spring cleaning and the hens charge in for their feed. They don't like to be locked out but can't clean properly with 40 hens in the way..

We have a lot more stuff coming to this thread. And looking toward to your posts!
Thank you for taking the time to review this and good day to you!

 

[aart]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/author/aart.175197/

 

[Lazy Farmer]

HOMEMADE BROODERS!
A cost effective solution to temporary Housing young Chickens in Transition.

First Photo: Introduced to Outdoors. (From our indoor brooder to our Barn)
View media item 7893529A converted swim pool a neighbor down the road had stacked on their curbside trash cans. Has a tiny hole but for our application so what?
Saved our overflowing landfill once again.
Second and Third Photos:
Wire fence reused from our old garden equipped with homemade feeders and water containers that keep the food and water CLEAN!
View media item 7893531View media item 7893530AS THE CHICKENS GET OLDER, THEY ARE TRANSFERRED FOR LEFT TO RIGHT TO DIFFERENT AGE PINS. UNTIL THE DAY THEY ARE FREE RANGED.

HOMEMADE STUFF SAYS MONEY!
PLUS.. the pride from making something on your own feels great.
Go USA!
​

 

[jvls1942]

I am what a lot of people would consider a cheapskate.
I needed a place to live, so I built a house. bought a book and followed the directions ..
I eventually became a home builder contractor..
I needed a plow for my garden.
they cost too much, so I took an old inexpensive quack digger and made a "chisel plow" . then I removed all of the spring teeth and rearranged them to make a cultivator . then I took all the teeth off, bought a couple of discs and made a potato hiller.
I build chicken cages, 3 coops, and a chicken brooder hood..
before I have to buy anything, I take the non-working item and try to fix it , first..

I repurpose things like garage door tracks and rollers to make sliding doors .

I built a 12 ft x 25 ft fly pen out of old ginseng drying racks.

I have pictures of all these things and more..

I just ordered 4 new windows for 3 of my bedrooms. they wanted $93.oo each just to varnish the inside casing. no thanks, I can do all of them for less than $20.oo and two day's drying time..

........jiminwisc........

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Homemade Rodent Control..
Everybody throws buckets away! Why?
They take years to breakdown in a landfill.
Some many uses. So many Applications.

Look at the prices of Bait Houses at TSC! Yow-sah!
If you need several of them, there goes your car payment for the month.
Just buy the Bait. That is your only expense if you have a imagination and are handy. And are not in a hurry to fill up the landfill so they need to make a new one.

First 2 photos are of the outside of the homemade bait houses. Holes drilled into the side bottoms. Small enough so chickens can't get their heads in but rats and mice can. Buckets have to lids!!!!
View media item 7893528View media item 7893527Third photo is the inside view of the bait house. A strip of wood wedged tight. 2 screws with some flat washers to fasten the TOM CAT BRAND BAIT sold at TSC in a pail. The baits have holes in them. So screw down the bait block with the washer on top. Not too tight or the block will break.
View media item 7893532Note : The photos were taken while having to refill the trap.
The Rats ate all the bait up in the pictured bait house example.
You have to monitor the contents because once the rodents find the bait, they will tell their buddies and they have a fabulous "Going Away Party"!
The bait makes them thirsty so most of the time they wonder off property and die in search of a water source.
Doesn't have to be a clean bucket as well. It's just for rodent control, not a livestock feeder.
We have made about 20 of these of a long period of time of course. Placed them randomly around the farm. Except where the smaller chickens are of course.
We are winning the War On Rats... Cheaply.​