Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[MACCanadianCoop]

My pallet coop is finally finished!

 

[gtaus]

Home Sweet Home
Time to put the Pig Palace to the test!!!

Looks like a very nice place for the pig. Love the splash of colors on the Pig Palace sign. I don't have the creativity to think of things like that, but I sure can appreciate it when I see it. I'm assuming one of the minors made that sign. Please pass on my compliments to the appropriate artist.

Great job.

 

[gtaus]

My pallet coop is finally finished!

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Great job. Did you make the inside ready for deep bedding? Looks like you have some kind of waterproof/protective material going up at least one foot on the walls.

Also, is your chicken run fully covered or just up to the run door?

Anyways, great job. Thanks for sharing your progress and finished project.

 

[MACCanadianCoop]

Great job. Did you make the inside ready for deep bedding? Looks like you have some kind of waterproof/protective material going up at least one foot on the walls.

Also, is your chicken run fully covered or just up to the run door?

Anyways, great job. Thanks for sharing your progress and finished project.

Yes, I'm going to do deep bedding. I have vinyl on the floor, and then sealant painted up 18 inches.

The run I only covered the first 4 feet and then I ran out of material.

 

[gtaus]

Simple pallet project for the chicken run.

When I first got my chickens, I was all into trying to find toys and such for them to enjoy in their chicken run. Nothing I put in there as a toy, or diversion, worked. Maybe things like mirrors, balls, swings, etc... work for other people as chicken toys, but my chickens could care less about those things.

I pretty much gave up the idea of chicken toys, and tried to think of something maybe more in line with their nature and chicken behavior. At that time, I still had nice, beautiful, green grass growing in my chicken run. So, I thought why not put a compost bin inside the run and make it easy to access for the chickens? The idea was that I could toss in our kitchen scraps, leftovers, grass clippings, etc... into the compost bin and the chickens could jump in there and have a good time scratching and pecking through everything, finding good things to eat.

Well, they loved the compost bin I built and it was my first big success with them. Over a short time, the chickens destroyed all the grass in the chicken run, leaving nothing but dirt, so I converted the entire chicken run into a composting system. Now, all the chicken run is covered with wood chips, leaves, grass clippings, and just about anything else organic I can throw in there. The initial idea of the composting bin inside the chicken run has been overcome by turning the entire run into a composting system. But the compost bin inside the chicken run remains.

So, take a look at what the compost bin inside the chicken run looks like.

This is a really simple pallet project build. I used 4 full pallets in total. I used 3 of the 4 pallets as the back and two sides. I cut the 4th pallet in half. Half of the 4th pallet was used as the front of the compost bin. That allows the chickens easy access to the inside of the bin and they can jump in and out as they please. I took the other half of the 4th pallet and placed it on top of the compost bin. That was a really good decision, as it turns out.

On a nice sunny day, the chickens will jump up and sit on the top half of the pallet, sunning themselves, like Queens of their domain. If it gets too hot, they jump down inside the bin and take shade under the half top. In a light rain, they will also seek shelter under the top of the compost bin. In a heavy rain, they go back into the coop. It's not uncommon for me to see all my chickens roosting on top of the compost bin in the afternoon sun, but they also roost on the side pallets and the half front.

Even though my initial idea was to keep all my compost material inside that bin, and let the chickens run on the grass inside the coop forever, reality was that it did not take long before the grass in the chicken run was ripped out down to the dirt. Although my entire chicken run is now filled with composting litter, I decided to keep the compost bin just as it was because it's used every day by the chickens.

If you are thinking of an easy pallet project that has immediate benefits, then this pallet compost bin for the chicken run should high on your list.

A few bonus pics of my chicken run after I converted it into a composting system. Here, you will see my fall leaves all tossed into the chicken run. The chickens love leaves and scratch and peck all day long looking for bugs to eat.

 

[gtaus]

Yes, I'm going to do deep bedding. I have vinyl on the floor, and then sealant painted up 18 inches.

The run I only covered the first 4 feet and then I ran out of material.

I'm a big fan of deep bedding. My vinyl goes up the sides 12 inches. Over the winter, adding fresh litter every few weeks, I end up with almost 12 inches deep by spring. Deep bedding is the best system I have ever used in my coops.

Just wondering if your roof over the run is able to hold a snow load? I would love to do something like your setup, but I get about 3 feet of snow over winter.

 

[chickengr]

Exactly, I am just trying to pass on different methods that may or may not work for any particular build. This board on board method, I think, would really work great as siding, if you don't need something absolutely waterproof. All I did was fill in the gaps on the base pallet with pallet slats I cut off another pallet. In this case, I just used my brad nail gun to fasten the slats to the pallet. It was really fast. For my purposes, I think the brad nails will be fine, but a person could easily "upgrade" the build by using nails or screws on the slats.


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As many of you know, I bought into the Ryboi 18 volt One+ tool line many years ago. One of my go to tools is the Ryobi 18V ONE+ AIRSTRIKE 18GA BRAD NAILER. I mainly use it to tack up pieces of wood that I will later nail down or screw in. But it also works great on some glue ups where for some reason you don't want to clamp the pieces together. The brad nails will fasten and hold the wood together just fine while the glue dries.

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Anyway, this brad nailer uses nails from 1-1/4 inch up to 2 inches. For the board on board method used for the pallets on top, I used the longer 2 inch brad nails and I think I don't need anything stronger for that project.

If you want to save money, then a nail gun like the above will set you back about $140.00 regular price, but I got my nailer on sale along with additional battery packs, so the "cost" of the nailer was actually about half. There is nothing this nailer does that I could not do with regular nails or screws, but, it just saves so much time. If time is money in your world, then these nail guns are worth every penny.

At my age, I'm more willing to pay for the convivence of power tools that save me time and labor. My younger self could easily do without.

I have more time than money, lol.

 

[chickengr]

I understand that. I prefer to use screws over nails because a lot of the things I make are temporary and I want to take them apart easily and use the wood in another project. I use my drills and impact drivers more than my hammers.

x2

 

[MACCanadianCoop]

I'm a big fan of deep bedding. My vinyl goes up the sides 12 inches. Over the winter, adding fresh litter every few weeks, I end up with almost 12 inches deep by spring. Deep bedding is the best system I have ever used in my coops.

I had planned to extend the vinyl up the sides, but it just wouldn't stay no matter what I did. So I went for plan B and painted on the sealant (similar to black jack)

Just wondering if your roof over the run is able to hold a snow load? I would love to do something like your setup, but I get about 3 feet of snow over winter.

I don't know TBH. We will find out this winter! I get a fair bit of snow as well, though the particular spot where I built the coop and run is relatively sheltered. If it doesn't hold up, I'll try something else next year.

 

[gtaus]

I don't know TBH. We will find out this winter! I get a fair bit of snow as well, though the particular spot where I built the coop and run is relatively sheltered. If it doesn't hold up, I'll try something else next year.

I'm still looking at building some kind of A-Frame enclosure for the winter to put in the chicken run. But, I would prefer something that was more permanent IF it would hold up to our snow loads.