Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

I've got egyptian fayoumis bc they can find their food by foraging. a friend gives me some old bread from a bakery. I drop it and it attracts bugs. I do give them some grain in the morning and evening. even my 4 meat hens are ok with that.

I am OK with people raising their chickens any way they want. Some breeds might be better than others at foraging and that is a bonus for some people.

Most of my laying hens are production breeds. They don't go broody, and they lay lots of eggs. I think if they only were foraging for food, they would not lay nearly as many eggs.

Years ago, I started off with meat chickens, Cornish Cross. I butchered them at about 8 weeks old. They ate lots of commercial food in those 8 weeks. But they were ready for harvest on time.

I remember talking to an adult leader of our local 4H program. He said one family brought in a bunch of 8-week-old Cornish Cross chickens that had been left to forage for their food and only got a little cracked corn every once in a while. Their chickens did not win any ribbons because they were half the size of the other commercial feed chickens. The 4H leader told me that the parents were all upset that their kids' chickens did not get any ribbons. They had saved a lot of money by forcing the meat chickens to forage for food. For some reason, they thought that was the goal - saving money. But they had failed to understand that the competition for that Cornish Cross breed was to have them market ready in 8 weeks, and their chickens left to forage for food where nowhere near market ready.

I have a mix of chicken breeds. Some dual-purpose breeds are better for eggs and meat than others, but it's really hard to beat the Cornish Cross chickens for meat and the production breeds for egg laying. They just do their one intended function better, IMHO, and that is why I have them. But I enjoy having a mix of birds in my small backyard flock. As I have often stated, I make (save) more money on composting with chickens and all breeds seem to do a good job at that.

 

[chickengr]

I am OK with people raising their chickens any way they want. Some breeds might be better than others at foraging and that is a bonus for some people.

Most of my laying hens are production breeds. They don't go broody, and they lay lots of eggs. I think if they only were foraging for food, they would not lay nearly as many eggs.

Years ago, I started off with meat chickens, Cornish Cross. I butchered them at about 8 weeks old. They ate lots of commercial food in those 8 weeks. But they were ready for harvest on time.

I remember talking to an adult leader of our local 4H program. He said one family brought in a bunch of 8-week-old Cornish Cross chickens that had been left to forage for their food and only got a little cracked corn every once in a while. Their chickens did not win any ribbons because they were half the size of the other commercial feed chickens. The 4H leader told me that the parents were all upset that their kids' chickens did not get any ribbons. They had saved a lot of money by forcing the meat chickens to forage for food. For some reason, they thought that was the goal - saving money. But they had failed to understand that the competition for that Cornish Cross breed was to have them market ready in 8 weeks, and their chickens left to forage for food where nowhere near market ready.

I have a mix of chicken breeds. Some dual-purpose breeds are better for eggs and meat than others, but it's really hard to beat the Cornish Cross chickens for meat and the production breeds for egg laying. They just do their one intended function better, IMHO, and that is why I have them. But I enjoy having a mix of birds in my small backyard flock. As I have often stated, I make (save) more money on composting with chickens and all breeds seem to do a good job at that.

I still feed chickens, just keep good foragers in case of need. my meat chickens are not cornish cross. they were raised on commercial feed for the first 3 months otherwise they would not grow. they are never ready for butchering in 8 weeks like CC. I must butcher them soon as they cannot survive heat. it is a pity as one of them got broody but I had to break it. one of the blue laying hybrids got broody too.

 

[Molpet]

I still feed chickens, just keep good foragers in case of need. my meat chickens are not cornish cross. they were raised on commercial feed for the first 3 months otherwise they would not grow. they are never ready for butchering in 8 weeks like CC. I must butcher them soon as they cannot survive heat. it is a pity as one of them got broody but I had to break it. one of the blue laying hybrids got broody too.

My meat mutts (part CX, BR, bjg, orp, and standard Cornish) are so big they tend to smash the eggs. They are good mothers if any hatch or given incubator chicks.

 

[Molpet]

HD is apparently reducing return times on some items.
Probably people use and return when they are done with the project.

 

[gtaus]

HD is apparently reducing return times on some items.

I hate to see Home Depot continue to go downhill, as evidenced by their new return and customer (non)service policies. They are just not the same company of years ago. I really don't like to see the tools I want to check out are now behind caged bars. It sure does not make one feel they are in a friendly place with everything locked up tight. It's the only store (so far) in our town that has items locked up in cages. I think it's a bad look, but maybe it was necessary for some of their stores. Probably not where I live.

Having said that I have been in the Ryobi 18v line of tools and batteries for almost 20 years. Home Depot is the only place to buy Ryobi locally. So, I will continue to buy them there. Also, Home Depot will have some sales that are better than the other big box stores. I have purchased a number of items in their clearance racks and cull wood carts at significant discounts. Home Depot is no longer my main store, but I still buy lots of stuff from them.

Looking at those items listed on the sign, I can see some people buying them for a short time and not needing them after use. I buy items for the long term, but maybe some people would rather take advantage of the return policy and get that money back in their pocket.

On the other hand, Harbor Freight has a de facto rental system where you buy a tool, for example, use it for your project, then return it within the return period and face maybe a 10% restocking fee. Essentially, it's an unwritten rental policy that they encourage. Although I have never returned a good product to Harbor Freight after using if for a project, I have returned some items that broke or would not work for me. Harbor Freight was good to me accepting my returns, and the items I had purchased were not subject to that 10% restocking fee.

I have purchased a number of hand tools and air tools from Harbor Freight for my pallet projects. So far, I have been happy with the performance and quality of their products. They now carry a Good, Better, and Best line of tools so you can purchase what you need. I have purchased a number of their tools with Lifetime Warranty. None of them have broken. Some of their lower end tools have a standard return policy of 30 days and were not very good. I have returned a few of those tools when they broke.

Speaking of that, I bought a jawhorse type sawhorse from Harbor Freight that I really liked - until it broke. Fortunately, it was within the return period. I thought I was going to save some money buying the Harbor Freight Bauer brand jawhorse, but it only had a 90-day warranty. The original Rockwell Jawhorse, which cost about twice as much, came with a 5-year warranty.

Picture of old HF ad...

Harbor Freight no longer sells that item. I suspect too many returns because of failures. Anyways, here is a current Amazon listing of the Rockwell Jawhorse for comparison...

Well, the Rockwell Jawhorse cost a lot more money than the HF Bauer jawhorse, but it comes with a 5-year warranty. For a heavy use tool like that, I think you save more money with the 5-year warranty. Sometimes, I look at my pallet project tool purchases that way.

For anyone interested it considering the warranty period as part of the cost of tool, here is what I learned that makes a higher cost tool sometimes less expensive if you consider the warranty...

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Great comparison! Let’s break down the cost per warranty period for each option:

Tool	Price	Warranty	Cost per Year of Warranty
Bauer Jawhorse	$149.00	90 days (~0.25 years)	$596.00/year
Rockwell Jawhorse	$234.00	5 years	$46.80/year

Key Insights​

The Rockwell Jawhorse may have a higher upfront cost, but over 5 years, it’s significantly cheaper per year of warranty.
The Bauer Jawhorse has a short warranty, meaning if it breaks after 90 days, you might have to pay full replacement cost sooner.
If longevity and protection matter, Rockwell’s longer warranty could save money in the long run.

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Like I said, my HF Bauer jawhorse failed within the first 90 days, so I got a full refund. But if it had died on day 91, I would have been burned!

I ended up buying another Bauer Jawhorse at a clearance price of around $60.00 over a year ago. I know it's limits and treat it with more care. So far, it has not broken. I use it all the time in my pallet wood breakdowns and projects. It's a great third hand. If/when my current Bauer Jawhorse breaks, I'll buy the Rockwell Jawhorse to replace it. I use it that much that, for me, it's worth buying a new one even at a higher price.

If I'm breaking down pallets, I set up my jawhorse to help with the work.

 

[gtaus]

Lessons Learned the Hard Way!

Before I get into what I did wrong, let's talk about what I did right.

Today, I moved my pallet wood stackable compost bin from my chicken run door to a new location, out of the way, for the summer. I really like how easy it is to remove the stackable tiers one by one and put them in a new location. I was able to take out the leaves I did not use last winter and transfer them to my summer storage spot a couple of tiers at a time.

Here is a picture of my pallet wood stackable compost bin filled with leaves, in a spot for the summer, with a chicken feed bag on top to keep off the rain...

That feed bag is the same one I used this past winter. It's about as good as a tarp, and it protects the leaves from getting wet. That's important. To keep the feed bag in place, I put the top with wire screen on it...

Because those leaves had a feed bag cover over them all winter, the leaves were still dry and fluffy. It took me about 15 minutes to transfer everything to the new spot. That was the way I will have to do things in the future. Very easy. Very nice.

Here is where I failed. I decided to store extra leaves in the protective cages I built for my raised beds. I did not put any kind of tarp on the top of them. As you can see in the following picture, the leaves compressed to about half their level of last fall. I flipped over some leaves, and you can see how dark black some of that leaf compost has become. Because it had snow on it all winter, composting had already started.

Truns out, wet leaves are pretty heavy! I had estimated about 20-30 minutes to clean out each of my raised beds. But that was more of a job than I expected. The leaves were too heavy and compressed for me to lift off the protective cage. So, I had to use a pitchfork to take the leaves out of the cages. I thought it would be easy enough to toss the leaves out on to the lawn, and them mow them up with my riding mower like I did last fall. That was a mistake. Wet, partially composted leaves clogged up my grass chute on the riding mower almost immediately. Nothing went right on that project.

Long story shortened, it took me almost 2 hours to empty and clean up just one of those bins full of leaves on top of my raised bed. I still have another 5 raised beds to go, but I'm going to have to think of a better way. Certainly not going to toss the wet leaves out on the grass to mow them up.

Going forward, I have started making more pallet wood stackable tiers for the compost bins and will cover dry leaves with a tarp or feed bag to keep off the water and snow. If you decided to store leaves for future use, you need to keep them dry. Otherwise, they will start to compost and get heavy as they break down.

My plan for tomorrow is to transfer those partially composted leaves in a wagon and sift them out with my cement mixer compost sifter. The composted bits screen out into my black wagon and the uncomposted leaves get rejected. I filled one black wagon full of sifted leaf compost today. That sifted leaf compost looks amazing. I will use it to top off my raised beds, mixing it in with some of my chicken run compost.

I will just toss the uncomposted leaf rejects into the chicken run. That will mix well with all the grass clippings I am getting this spring.

I really like making my own organic compost. With the help of Copilot AI, I built a comparison table of compost materials that you might want to use...

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Absolutely! Here’s a comparison table including leaf mold compost, cow manure, and chicken run compost.

Factor	Leaf Mold Compost	Cow Manure	Chicken Run Compost
Nitrogen (N)	Low to moderate	High	Very high (2-3%)
Phosphorus (P)	Low	Moderate	High (1-2%)
Potassium (K)	Moderate	High	High (1-2%)
Calcium (Ca)	High	Moderate	High
Magnesium (Mg)	High	Moderate	Moderate
Organic Matter	Very high	Moderate	High
Microbial Activity	High	High	Very high
Immediate Fertilization	Slow-release	Fast-release	Fast-release

Key Takeaways​

Chicken run compost is extremely rich in nitrogen, making it a powerful fertilizer but requiring proper composting to avoid burning plants.
Leaf mold compost is best for long-term soil health, improving moisture retention and fungal activity.
Cow manure provides balanced nutrients but needs aging to prevent excess salts.
Combining all three can create a nutrient-rich, well-balanced compost for gardens.

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If you have chickens and gardens, I strongly recommend making your own chicken run compost. IMHO, it's the best!