Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

good but dirt floor is better.

It's hard to beat a dirt floor with animals. I agree. But this is an elevated coop, so it needed some kind of flooring.

Thanks for the response.

 

[gtaus]

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.

I had considered using Black Jack #57 rubber coating when I first built my chicken coop. Lots of good reviews from other members here on the BYC forums. But the rubber coating was rather expensive compared to the linoleum I got on clearance.

I don't have another structure to house my chickens overnight, or for a few nights, so I ended up with the pallet wood on the floor repair which took me a few hours.

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.

Yep, I think the OSB rotted out from the bottom up. The elevated coop was built on an old boat trailer. It sits on top of what was once part of my backyard lawn. I suspect the ground humidity rose up into the OSB. I probably should have painted both the top and bottom of the wood before I put it into the coop. Never thought of painting the OSB on both sides, to be honest. That is something to keep in mind if/when I have to replace the floorboards.

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 originally thought I would have chickens for only a couple of years. It's been over 5 years now. Turns out I liked having chickens more than I thought I would.

At my age, I try to make any plans longer than a couple of years. I'm still in relatively good health, but I'm not planning for the next 10 or 20 years. The pallet wood repair fits into my short term goals for now.

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.

I have lots of tarps I got for free from Harbor Freight. I suppose I could cover the pallet wood floorboards with a tarp and then put the coop litter on top of the tarp. That might add even more years to the sacrificial pallet wood planks. Good suggestion.

bedding choking the air

To reduce the chicken dust in the air, I first use a plastic flat scoop shovel to remove most of the bedding. Then I use a push broom which keeps the dust down pretty good. After all that, I use a leaf blower to air sweep everything else out the backend of the coop.

When I do my semiannual cleanouts, I dress up with long pants, long sleeved shirt, eye protection and especially N95 dust mask for this job. When I was done cleaning out the coop, I tossed all my clothes into the washer and took a shower before doing anything else. I don't like bringing chicken dust into the house, and I don't like chicken dust on myself. But it's only twice a year, so no big deal.

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.)

I have also used tarps to move leaves. Works pretty good. For heavy stuff, I have Gorilla carts.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Appreciate you taking time to respond to my request.

 

[fuzzi]

Impressive use of pallets:

 

[Molpet]

Long post I found on Facebook. Listing where what hand tools are made

Spoiler

FYI: Great Neck owns OEM Tools and supplies Napa with the Carlyle brand. Alltrade supplies O'Reilly's. Performance Tools/Wilmar supplies Auto Zone's "Duralast" brand. Allied Tools licenses the brand Channelock for socket set sold at Costco. Neiko Tools is not Japanese, they're from China and primarily sold by Amazon. CAT Hydraulics are from Alltrade which license the name from Caterpillar. Alltrade also supplies the clubs with Cat brand products. GearWrench is formally KD-Tools which were made in USA, but now mostly from Taiwan & China. Wiss snips are still made in USA. Vise Grip was originally made in Dewitt Nebraska for some 70-years, but IRWIN bought them, which was owned by Newall- Rubbermaid at the time and moved production overseas. Irwin is now owned by Stanley-Black& Decker. Malco bought the original Vise-Grip plant and started manufacturing "Eagle-Grip" locking pliers, but never really had any market share and sold the plant to Snap-On Irwin also bought Lenox which is now owned by Stanley-Black& Decker. Crescent brand hand tools used to be USA made, but now primarily from China & Vietnam. Nicholson files were USA, but now from South America. Cooper Group which owed Crescent, Wiss, Apex, Xcelite, Nicholson brands merged with Danaher tools which owns GearWrench, KD Tools to form Apex Group. Torin Jacks owns the line of "Blackjack" hydraulics and supplies many other brands. Lincoln jacks were made in USA, but they flooded the market with other hydraulic products which turned out to be poor quality and went bankrupt. Lincoln's floor jacks made in USA was purchased by one of the first jump starter manufacturers in USA and rebranded to "Blackhawk", but they were under funded and sold to Shein Fu Hydraulic of Taiwan which rebranded to the name "Hein-Weiner". Shein Fu also owns "Omega" hydraulic brand. Cornwell, Mac, Matco & Snap-On do make regular sockets and wrenches in the USA. Marshalltown trowels owns Wallpro drywall tools and bought Vaughn Hammers out of bankruptcy. Enderes makes their tools in USA. Klien Tools is primarily USA made, but has added some imported products. GreatStar, a Chinese company owns SK Tools, Shop-Vac, Jorgensen-Pony clamps & Arrow Fasteners which the majority of products once made in USA are now from China. GreatStar supplies Walmart with their Hyper Tough tool brand. Techtronic which owns Milwaukee, Ryobi, Ridgid Power tools, also owns the Hart brand of tools which is exclusive to Walmart. Ridgid Hand tools & Louisville ladders is owned by Emerson Electric which makes motors for power equipment and at one time owned SKIL Power Tools but sold to Bosch. Bosch sold "SKIL" to Chevron Power Tools (HK). Bosch also bought Vermont-American and merged majority of power tool accessories into the Bosch brand. Stanley-Black& Decker owns DeWalt, Stanley, MAC, Proto & Blackhawk hand tools. Proto was once owned by Ingersoll-Rand and had manufacturing plants in Mexico in partnership with Urrea. When Stanley bought Proto from I-R the deal didn't include the Mexico subsidiary. Protomex rebranded to Urrea. Channelock is still made in USA, but their adjustable wrenches are made by Irega in Spain. Channelock also licenses the brand for other tool products. Astro Pneumatic Tools are primarily from Taiwan & China. Sunex is from Taiwan & China. Gray brand impact sockets are from Taiwan. Ingersoll-Rand & Chicago Pneumatic Tools are primarily from China. AirCat Pneumatic Tools are now owned by Florida Pneumatic which also owns Rodac & Universal Pneumatic. Adjustable Clamp which owns Pony & Jorgensen was bought by GreatStar with the promise to keep manufacturing in USA, but closed all plants and sources from China & Vietnam. Western-Forge made all Craftsman hand tools in Colorado and was bought by Ideal Industries, but they have closed down. Ideal also bought Pratt-Read which made screwdrivers in the USA, but recently closed down. Ideal bought SK Tools from bankruptcy and sold to GreatStar which now is primarily from overseas. OTC Tools and scanners were all from USA, but now sources many products from Taiwan & China. Lisle Tools was originally all made in USA, but now many items are made overseas. General Tools were originally USA, but now many items are from overseas. Milwaukee Hand Trucks sources the frames in parts from China & Vietnam and welds the parts in the USA. HFT owns all the brands you don't recognize in their stores and has transformed into a major retailer with over 1600 stores with brands like Icon, Bauer, Daytona, Predator, U.S. General & many others. HFT owns their own factories in China and sources from others. HFT rise is the result of the demise of Sears. Craftsman name was bought by Stanley-Black& Decker and exclusive to Lowe's & Ace Hardware. Stanley-Black&Decker owns the "Husky" brand which is exclusive to Home Depot. Stanley-Black&Decker bought Porter Cable & Delta Machinery, but sold Delta to a Taiwanese manufacturer of Woodworking equipment. Rockwell, WORX & ECO are owned by the same Chinese company. Super-Ego tools are made in Spain. Knipex and Wiha tools are from Germany. Central Instruments sells precision measuring tools which includes products from China and not related to "Central" brand of tools sold at HFT. Wright makes industrial hand tools in USA, but their adjustable wrenches are by Irega from Spain. MAC,Matco, Blue Point by Snap-on source many of their products from the same factories as other brands like Sunex. Tekton makes many items in USA. Majority of Air Hose is coming from India & Taiwan or China. Majority of striking tools and crow bars are made in India. Majority of Air compressor heads are made in Taiwan & China and assembled with US motors and tanks, but others are completely made in China. Olympia Tools once in majority of home centers went bankrupt and was bought by a Chinese company which supplies Walmart with some products. Majority of tool boxes and service carts are from Taiwan & China. Freud sold Diablo brand to Irwin. Kolbalt hand tools were originally made in USA by Williams, which is Lowes house brand and now is supplied by Great Neck. Schumacher battery chargers were once made in USA, but now from China. Continental Abrasives are from Thailand. Stanley tape measures are from Thailand. Majority of extension cords are from Thailand, China & Vietnam. Milwaukee's hand tools are from overseas and span every trade. Grip Edge toolsMajority of carpenter's work pouches are from India & China, but Occidental brand is USA. Makita Power Tools were originally from Japan, but now primarily China. Hitachi Power Tools bought Metabo and rebranded MetaboHPT. Hitachi Koyo of Japan is no longer in the power tools business. Grip Edge brand has become popular on the tool trucks and is made in Taiwan. Wilde manufacturers a wide range of pliers in Kansas. The takeaway from all this, is the brands your Grandpa & Dad had in their toolbox when you were growing up are not the same company today and in many instances you are paying for the name. Each item has its pros and cons, and needs to be judged on quality, not brand. In many instances you can buy the very same product which is sourced from overseas by numerous companies place their brand.

 

[gtaus]

The takeaway from all this, is the brands your Grandpa & Dad had in their toolbox when you were growing up are not the same company today and in many instances you are paying for the name. Each item has its pros and cons, and needs to be judged on quality, not brand. In many instances you can buy the very same product which is sourced from overseas by numerous companies place their brand.

I have believed that for a long time. My grandpa's hand tools were better made than most of the tools I can get today. However, he paid more for that quality in terms of price for tool versus how much he made per hour of labor.

So many tool companies come and go. Years ago, I got stung with battery operated tools that went out of business or changed their battery design, making my old tools useless with no new batteries to be purchased. IMHO, the best decision I ever made was to move to Ryobi tools which promised to keep their 18V One+ platform of stem batteries - forever. So far, about 20 years later, my old Ryobi Ni-Cad era tools are working better than ever with new Ryobi Li-Ion batteries. The old Ni-Cad batteries are long dead, but the tools live on.

Before that, I had purchased a rather expensive multi tool kit and really liked using it - for about 2 years - then the Ni-Cad batteries died, and you could not purchase any new ones. The tool company died, and nobody was making replacement batteries for that brand. That was a big investment for me that only lasted 2 years! After that, I jumped into Ryobi because of the promise to keep their stem battery design into the future. Thankfully, Ryobi has kept their promise.

 

[gtaus]

Impressive use of pallets:

No way I could do all that work with manual tools. Well, maybe I could, but I would not want to. Amazing what some people can do with a lot of pallets and determination!

I'm just happy to build a new pallet wood raised bed or two each year. That's more my speed.

 

[fuzzi]

No way I could do all that work with manual tools. Well, maybe I could, but I would not want to. Amazing what some people can do with a lot of pallets and determination!

I'm just happy to build a new pallet wood raised bed or two each year. That's more my speed.

Youth...so sad that it's wasted on the young...

 

[Smokerbill]

Update on the butternut squash that grew on my pallet chicken run compost bin. It was a success! I had to water it regularly first part of the season, but later on the squash didn't need much watering. And I didn't fertilize at all.

I suspect that the roots went all through the compost pile and maybe went further down into the soil below. There are a dozen nice squash, most hanging on the sides. I plant to do it again next year.

The volunteer tomatoes grew pretty well to. The vines on the east side didn't make any tomatoes. There are several cherry type tomatoes on the other side.

I'm hoping that the roots did a good job of breaking down the rotted woodchips. It should be good, usable compost for the garden this fall.

 

[Molpet]

I just noticed this blooming under a black walnut tree. I don't think it's going to make fruit before frost

 

[gtaus]

Update on the butternut squash that grew on my pallet chicken run compost bin. It was a success! I had to water it regularly first part of the season, but later on the squash didn't need much watering. And I didn't fertilize at all.

I suspect that the roots went all through the compost pile and maybe went further down into the soil below. There are a dozen nice squash, most hanging on the sides. I plant to do it again next year.

Yep, looks like a big success. I'd certainly do it again next year with results like that.

I tried planting some extra squash plants into a wood pile that I filled with grass clippings and leaves. I planted the squash in a couple shovel scoops of compost. But the wood pile was underneath some trees and was in full shade. I never watered that wood pile because of where it is on my property. One vine died long before it had a chance to grow, the other vine grew about 4 feet but never flowered of produced any squash. So, that experiment was a bust.

I'll just have to enjoy the success of others this year. Even my main raised bed gardens were less than average this year. We had smoke filled skies a good part of the early growing season due to fires up in Canada. Lots of hazy days that filtered the sunshine when the plants needed it the most. They got off to a slow start and never fully recovered. In northern Minnesota, our growing season is short enough. But to lose 3 or 4 weeks in that critical early growing season was too much.

Well, I did OK because I planted extra plants and this year I had those pallet wood chicken wire frames protecting my raised beds from the deer. The combination of having more plants and protecting them added up to a decent harvest at the end of the year. It's just that I got about half the produce from each plant that I would expect from a normal year.

Last year, of course, I had a bumper crop to harvest that was wiped out in one night by a herd of deer that must have passed through my property. That was heartbreaking. I did not have much left to harvest after they ate their fill of my tomatoes and peppers. Darn deer! But the pallet wood chicken wire cages did their job this year and I managed to harvest my tomatoes and peppers - even if only half the output per plant from last year.