Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

I'm wondering about making cages to go around my blue berry bushes. Birds get all the berries just before they get ripe. I wonder if the birds that are the thieves are small enough to get through chicken wire...?

Here is something I found online...

Many of the berry bandits—like robins, sparrows, catbirds, and cedar waxwings—can easily slip through standard chicken wire if the mesh is 1" or larger. Even juvenile birds or smaller species like finches can squeeze through ¾" mesh if they're motivated by ripe blueberries.

I have only seen 1- and 2-inch poultry wire locally. But maybe it could be special ordered from a big box store? Another thought is to take the 1-inch chicken wire and add a second layer on top, staggering the wire, making it ~1/2-inch mesh?

Personally, I'd avoid the bird netting if you start trapping birds. Nobody wants to see dead birds in netting. Having said that, I have bird netting on top of my chicken run and never had any trapped birds. But the mesh on my bird netting allows small birds to get in and out. I just want to keep out the hawks and eagles.

Of course, hardware cloth would work, but it's pricey.

I tried to grow strawberries out in my garden. Most of the berries got eaten by critters long before they were ripe enough for me to harvest. That was before I had even made the pallet wood protective cages, maybe I'd have better luck now. I lost almost everything to birds, squirrels and chipmunks. All in all, I think my strawberry patch cost me about $1.00 per strawberry I actually harvested and ate. So, I gave up and planted other stuff in that bed. But now that I have the protective cage design down, I might try it again.

My strawberry plants were probably less than one foot tall. Easy enough to build a small protective cage for that. Even with hardware cloth it would not be too expensive. How tall do your blueberries grow? I imagine that will be a big factor in whatever protection you use.

 

[gtaus]

If the stacking cages get pushed around by Bambi, the plant might be broken.
A short piece of wood sticking up inside the corners probably would keep in place.

I don't think the deer would bother trying to push off a top cage to get to the plants, but that is why I mentioned tying the cages together with a rope. The deer have not (yet) tried pushing off my cages that are just sitting on top of the raised beds.

I have thought of adding additional boards to the framing to hold the cages to each other, or maybe even to the raised bed.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[gtaus]

sorry for the deer trouble. your growing season is almost done so deer did you a favour. some people chop pepper tops so that peppers can ripen faster. I did the same with my only 2 pumpkin vines that have a pumpkin each.

I did not know that. Thanks. The thought of deer doing me a favor never occurred to me!

But like I said, all the peppers were below that top growth safely protected by the cage and fencing. I did not lose any actual peppers, just the green tops. I was afraid that chewing off the tops of the plants would harm them. But I guess you could be right in that a stressed plant often fruits earlier and more in response. That will be a good lesson learned.

Answer....

 

[Sally PB]

How tall do your blueberries grow? I imagine that will be a big factor in whatever protection you use.

They can be 5-6 feet tall. So I'd have to make doors to open, as I couldn't lift them off.

hmmmm. Dutch door style... the top could hinge down... hmmm...

 

[chickengr]

Here is something I found online...

Many of the berry bandits—like robins, sparrows, catbirds, and cedar waxwings—can easily slip through standard chicken wire if the mesh is 1" or larger. Even juvenile birds or smaller species like finches can squeeze through ¾" mesh if they're motivated by ripe blueberries.

View attachment 4203245
View attachment 4203246

I have only seen 1- and 2-inch poultry wire locally. But maybe it could be special ordered from a big box store? Another thought is to take the 1-inch chicken wire and add a second layer on top, staggering the wire, making it ~1/2-inch mesh?

Personally, I'd avoid the bird netting if you start trapping birds. Nobody wants to see dead birds in netting. Having said that, I have bird netting on top of my chicken run and never had any trapped birds. But the mesh on my bird netting allows small birds to get in and out. I just want to keep out the hawks and eagles.

Of course, hardware cloth would work, but it's pricey.

I tried to grow strawberries out in my garden. Most of the berries got eaten by critters long before they were ripe enough for me to harvest. That was before I had even made the pallet wood protective cages, maybe I'd have better luck now. I lost almost everything to birds, squirrels and chipmunks. All in all, I think my strawberry patch cost me about $1.00 per strawberry I actually harvested and ate. So, I gave up and planted other stuff in that bed. But now that I have the protective cage design down, I might try it again.

My strawberry plants were probably less than one foot tall. Easy enough to build a small protective cage for that. Even with hardware cloth it would not be too expensive. How tall do your blueberries grow? I imagine that will be a big factor in whatever protection you use.

chicken wire I find here has small holes.

 

[gtaus]

Pallet Wood Flooring for Chicken Coop

When I first built my elevated chicken coop, I used OSB for the floor board and covered it with linoleum I got on clearance from Menards. It lasted 5 years, so I'm not complaining. But the other day I started my semi-annual coop cleanout and noticed a number of soft spots in the flooring.

For reference, I use dry deep bedding in the coop. Typically 4-8 inches deep. It's not a true deep litter system because I do not actively encourage moist composting inside the coop. However, even with the dry deep bedding, the chicken poo works its way down to the flooring and can get a bit moist.

Over the years, the linoleum has started to crack and rip. I was expecting that, and I think 5 years for linoleum inside a coop was probably all I could expect. This new group of chickens I got last year has been really tough on the linoleum. I have seen one of them peck and rip up the linoleum on purpose. I don't have any idea why. I don't know if it was just one chicken doing all the damage, but damage was done.

As I was cleaning, it became apparent to me that I had to rip out all the old linoleum. It was in worse condition than I thought. Worse yet, the soft spots under the linoleum were rotted OSB board and some places had holes in the flooring. I'm not sure how the OSB got rotted underneath the protective cover of the linoleum, but it was really bad in some spots.

I have been thinking about methods of floor repair for a few months. I really don't know what would be best. But I decided to cover the OSB with pallet wood planks for now and see how long the wood will last - without any linoleum covering - with my dry deep bedding system.

Here are a couple of pictures of the first half of the coop floor covering the worse spots. The first picture is pallet wood covering the worse spots in the coop. The OSB underneath the nest boxes had completely rotted out, despite linoleum covering it. No pictures of the before problem, but here is the pallet wood flooring I laid down on the first half of the coop...

Here is another view of my repair job. I used 32-inch-long planks, which is about all I can get off the pallet planks once I trim the edges square. As you can see, I laid them down lengthwise in the coop which is the same direction I will be shoveling/sweeping the coop litter out when I do my semiannual coop litter cleanout. The idea with the boards in this lengthwise direction is that it would be smoother to sweep out - as compared if I had laid the boards side to side, for example.

Ascetically, you would never lay down floorboards like this inside your house. That would look just terrible. You don't want an obvious pattern like I have.

However, for a chicken coop floor, this is a better layout design, having all the boards exactly 32 inches long laid down in rows. If/when a pallet wood floorboard needs to be replaced, I just have to pull it up and plop down a new 32-inch-long board.

At worse, I might have to rip it to size because all the boards are different widths. I had considered ripping all the boards to exactly 2-1/2- or 3-inches wide, but that would mean more waste, and I wanted to make maximum use of the pallet wood planks I had.

Yes, there are some small gaps between some boards, but I can live with that. Remember, it will be covered with anywhere from 4-10 inches of dry deep litter.

Along with that, I made no effort to ensure that all pallet planks were the same thickness. Most of them are about 1/2 inch thick but could be more or less thick. It's not a level floor in that respect with some boards sitting taller than others. For my chicken coop, covered with many inches of coop litter, it will never matter.

I would love to hear feedback from anyone about what you think of my pallet wood floor for my chicken coop. Has anyone else tried this? Are there problems I have not considered? I can tell you, that right now, the floor no longer has soft spots and feels much more solid than before. Today, I'm happy with the repair.

I am hoping to get at least a few years out of the pallet wood flooring before some boards start rotting. I suspect the floorboards first to rot will probably be in the same places as the original OSB floorboard failed. But, in the meantime, I have saved money using these sacrificial pallet wood planks for the repair. After discovering the OSB rotting out underneath my linoleum, this time I think I might prefer to see the actual condition of the floorboards when I do my semiannual cleanouts. Nothing hidden from view after the coop litter is cleaned out. If a board(s) need to be replaced, I'll be able to see it after sweeping the floor.

I ran out of pallet wood floorboards to do the whole floor in the chicken coop. I had gone into this repair thinking I would only have to patch a small section of the flooring. I thought I had 3X more pallet wood floorboards ready to use than needed. But now I have decided to cover the entire floor with pallet wood. I'm not quite halfway done with the whole floor, but the worst part is fixed and covered.

Anyways, I would love to hear any thoughts from others - pro or con - on this pallet wood floor repair. Later...

 

[Molpet]

Pallet Wood Flooring for Chicken Coop

When I first built my elevated chicken coop, I used OSB for the floor board and covered it with linoleum I got on clearance from Menards. It lasted 5 years, so I'm not complaining. But the other day I started my semi-annual coop cleanout and noticed a number of soft spots in the flooring.

For reference, I use dry deep bedding in the coop. Typically 4-8 inches deep. It's not a true deep litter system because I do not actively encourage moist composting inside the coop. However, even with the dry deep bedding, the chicken poo works its way down to the flooring and can get a bit moist.

Over the years, the linoleum has started to crack and rip. I was expecting that, and I think 5 years for linoleum inside a coop was probably all I could expect. This new group of chickens I got last year has been really tough on the linoleum. I have seen one of them peck and rip up the linoleum on purpose. I don't have any idea why. I don't know if it was just one chicken doing all the damage, but damage was done.

As I was cleaning, it became apparent to me that I had to rip out all the old linoleum. It was in worse condition than I thought. Worse yet, the soft spots under the linoleum were rotted OSB board and some places had holes in the flooring. I'm not sure how the OSB got rotted underneath the protective cover of the linoleum, but it was really bad in some spots.

I have been thinking about methods of floor repair for a few months. I really don't know what would be best. But I decided to cover the OSB with pallet wood planks for now and see how long the wood will last - without any linoleum covering - with my dry deep bedding system.

Here are a couple of pictures of the first half of the coop floor covering the worse spots. The first picture is pallet wood covering the worse spots in the coop. The OSB underneath the nest boxes had completely rotted out, despite linoleum covering it. No pictures of the before problem, but here is the pallet wood flooring I laid down on the first half of the coop...

View attachment 4205565

Here is another view of my repair job. I used 32-inch-long planks, which is about all I can get off the pallet planks once I trim the edges square. As you can see, I laid them down lengthwise in the coop which is the same direction I will be shoveling/sweeping the coop litter out when I do my semiannual coop litter cleanout. The idea with the boards in this lengthwise direction is that it would be smoother to sweep out - as compared if I had laid the boards side to side, for example.

View attachment 4205566

Ascetically, you would never lay down floorboards like this inside your house. That would look just terrible. You don't want an obvious pattern like I have.

However, for a chicken coop floor, this is a better layout design, having all the boards exactly 32 inches long laid down in rows. If/when a pallet wood floorboard needs to be replaced, I just have to pull it up and plop down a new 32-inch-long board.

At worse, I might have to rip it to size because all the boards are different widths. I had considered ripping all the boards to exactly 2-1/2- or 3-inches wide, but that would mean more waste, and I wanted to make maximum use of the pallet wood planks I had.

Yes, there are some small gaps between some boards, but I can live with that. Remember, it will be covered with anywhere from 4-10 inches of dry deep litter.

Along with that, I made no effort to ensure that all pallet planks were the same thickness. Most of them are about 1/2 inch thick but could be more or less thick. It's not a level floor in that respect with some boards sitting taller than others. For my chicken coop, covered with many inches of coop litter, it will never matter.

I would love to hear feedback from anyone about what you think of my pallet wood floor for my chicken coop. Has anyone else tried this? Are there problems I have not considered? I can tell you, that right now, the floor no longer has soft spots and feels much more solid than before. Today, I'm happy with the repair.

I am hoping to get at least a few years out of the pallet wood flooring before some boards start rotting. I suspect the floorboards first to rot will probably be in the same places as the original OSB floorboard failed. But, in the meantime, I have saved money using these sacrificial pallet wood planks for the repair. After discovering the OSB rotting out underneath my linoleum, this time I think I might prefer to see the actual condition of the floorboards when I do my semiannual cleanouts. Nothing hidden from view after the coop litter is cleaned out. If a board(s) need to be replaced, I'll be able to see it after sweeping the floor.

I ran out of pallet wood floorboards to do the whole floor in the chicken coop. I had gone into this repair thinking I would only have to patch a small section of the flooring. I thought I had 3X more pallet wood floorboards ready to use than needed. But now I have decided to cover the entire floor with pallet wood. I'm not quite halfway done with the whole floor, but the worst part is fixed and covered.

Anyways, I would love to hear any thoughts from others - pro or con - on this pallet wood floor repair. Later...

Looks good and cost effective. OSB is tends to swell and deteriorate when wet. Plywood is somewhat better. Boards are better yet.
My coops have dirt floors with deep litter.

 

[gtaus]

Looks good and cost effective. OSB is tends to swell and deteriorate when wet. Plywood is somewhat better. Boards are better yet.
My coops have dirt floors with deep litter.

Thanks for the response. I agree with your comments. As much as I like my elevated chicken coop built on an old boat trailer, I have never moved it like I thought I would. Being stationary, and looking back 20/20, I think I would have been better off with a shed conversion chicken coop with a dirt floor and deep litter, or dry deep bedding.

If I ever build another chicken coop, it will be a shed conversion next time. That way, if I stop having chickens, at least I have a decent storage shed. My chicken coop is forever a chicken coop and I don't imagine it useful for storage.

In the meantime, I think the pallet wood flooring upgrade/repair should give me a few more years of life out of my existing coop.

 

[chickengr]

Pallet Wood Flooring for Chicken Coop

When I first built my elevated chicken coop, I used OSB for the floor board and covered it with linoleum I got on clearance from Menards. It lasted 5 years, so I'm not complaining. But the other day I started my semi-annual coop cleanout and noticed a number of soft spots in the flooring.

For reference, I use dry deep bedding in the coop. Typically 4-8 inches deep. It's not a true deep litter system because I do not actively encourage moist composting inside the coop. However, even with the dry deep bedding, the chicken poo works its way down to the flooring and can get a bit moist.

Over the years, the linoleum has started to crack and rip. I was expecting that, and I think 5 years for linoleum inside a coop was probably all I could expect. This new group of chickens I got last year has been really tough on the linoleum. I have seen one of them peck and rip up the linoleum on purpose. I don't have any idea why. I don't know if it was just one chicken doing all the damage, but damage was done.

As I was cleaning, it became apparent to me that I had to rip out all the old linoleum. It was in worse condition than I thought. Worse yet, the soft spots under the linoleum were rotted OSB board and some places had holes in the flooring. I'm not sure how the OSB got rotted underneath the protective cover of the linoleum, but it was really bad in some spots.

I have been thinking about methods of floor repair for a few months. I really don't know what would be best. But I decided to cover the OSB with pallet wood planks for now and see how long the wood will last - without any linoleum covering - with my dry deep bedding system.

Here are a couple of pictures of the first half of the coop floor covering the worse spots. The first picture is pallet wood covering the worse spots in the coop. The OSB underneath the nest boxes had completely rotted out, despite linoleum covering it. No pictures of the before problem, but here is the pallet wood flooring I laid down on the first half of the coop...

View attachment 4205565

Here is another view of my repair job. I used 32-inch-long planks, which is about all I can get off the pallet planks once I trim the edges square. As you can see, I laid them down lengthwise in the coop which is the same direction I will be shoveling/sweeping the coop litter out when I do my semiannual coop litter cleanout. The idea with the boards in this lengthwise direction is that it would be smoother to sweep out - as compared if I had laid the boards side to side, for example.

View attachment 4205566

Ascetically, you would never lay down floorboards like this inside your house. That would look just terrible. You don't want an obvious pattern like I have.

However, for a chicken coop floor, this is a better layout design, having all the boards exactly 32 inches long laid down in rows. If/when a pallet wood floorboard needs to be replaced, I just have to pull it up and plop down a new 32-inch-long board.

At worse, I might have to rip it to size because all the boards are different widths. I had considered ripping all the boards to exactly 2-1/2- or 3-inches wide, but that would mean more waste, and I wanted to make maximum use of the pallet wood planks I had.

Yes, there are some small gaps between some boards, but I can live with that. Remember, it will be covered with anywhere from 4-10 inches of dry deep litter.

Along with that, I made no effort to ensure that all pallet planks were the same thickness. Most of them are about 1/2 inch thick but could be more or less thick. It's not a level floor in that respect with some boards sitting taller than others. For my chicken coop, covered with many inches of coop litter, it will never matter.

I would love to hear feedback from anyone about what you think of my pallet wood floor for my chicken coop. Has anyone else tried this? Are there problems I have not considered? I can tell you, that right now, the floor no longer has soft spots and feels much more solid than before. Today, I'm happy with the repair.

I am hoping to get at least a few years out of the pallet wood flooring before some boards start rotting. I suspect the floorboards first to rot will probably be in the same places as the original OSB floorboard failed. But, in the meantime, I have saved money using these sacrificial pallet wood planks for the repair. After discovering the OSB rotting out underneath my linoleum, this time I think I might prefer to see the actual condition of the floorboards when I do my semiannual cleanouts. Nothing hidden from view after the coop litter is cleaned out. If a board(s) need to be replaced, I'll be able to see it after sweeping the floor.

I ran out of pallet wood floorboards to do the whole floor in the chicken coop. I had gone into this repair thinking I would only have to patch a small section of the flooring. I thought I had 3X more pallet wood floorboards ready to use than needed. But now I have decided to cover the entire floor with pallet wood. I'm not quite halfway done with the whole floor, but the worst part is fixed and covered.

Anyways, I would love to hear any thoughts from others - pro or con - on this pallet wood floor repair. Later...

good but dirt floor is better.

 

[SnackMeat]

Depending on if you can have your chickens overnight in a different structure for a few nights I would suggest either a paint, or a rubber sealant. Paint, epoxy would be thickest and best for keeping clean and water resistant, but it stinks the longest (but summer is a good time because the heat has it dry and cure faster.) but even a satin interior would be better than nothing, though some sort of exterior paint or wood treatment would be best.


A rubber or silicone treatment would be better still but I'm not sure I would go to that trouble since you seem iffy on if you like this as an option.


I'd also be curious what's underneath the coop. If you were to do this again, I would paint or treat both sides of the wood to better deal with condensation or moisture underneath.


Otherwise, looks good and definitely above average if you're just looking at it as a stop gap measure that will still likely last years.

I'm not sure what the rest of the setup looks like but you could consider a plastic shower curtain over the wood, then the bedding. 1) to help the moisture, and 2) to help pull the bedding out the entrance when it's time to replace. Yeah you can broom, but this would help limit at least a chunk of the bedding choking the air with sweeping versus just being pulled outside (and then dragged to the compost-- though it depends on thickness of plastic-- I've done this with autumn leaves and tarps and found it very handy way to transport landscaping material.)