Stimulus check spending wish list, anyone?

[gtaus]

I wish I was getting one
It would have went on the girls.

Are you not getting a stimulus check? I thought just about everyone was eligible, with some exceptions.

 

[CSolis]

a) Nurture Right 360
b) cattle panels, tarps, chicken wire and lumber for 2 more round pens.

Making a round pen for a pair is so easy with a 16' cattle panel and a 4' door span. You can also use them for turn out pens as chicks are ready to leave the brooder. There are plenty of Japanese privet here to make roosts in them.

 

[bill3607]

Of course. And it's great that you were able to donate your money. Part of my money will also go to some local charities, but I would also like to do something extra with that money to improve things for our little homestead.

It is great to be able to donate it. I commend anyone that does this. Also, do not feel guilty for spending it even if you do not need it, though. Putting it back into the economy will help immensely. Businesses need it to help stay afloat and put people back to work. That is why it is called a "stimulus".

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

a) Nurture Right 360
b) cattle panels, tarps, chicken wire and lumber for 2 more round pens.

Making a round pen for a pair is so easy with a 16' cattle panel and a 4' door span. You can also use them for turn out pens as chicks are ready to leave the brooder. There are plenty of Japanese privet here to make roosts in them.

Do you have a picture of your round pen? That sounds like a great idea!

I have a NR360 and I love it. I have 2 chicks hatching in it as we speak.

My stumulus money will be buying a shed to convert to a coop. The local high school shop class builds them and I am really excited to support their program

 

[MamaBelle5]

However, I also know that some people will pay off their credit cards and then immediately max them out again, so it's like nothing ever changed. Many people also have a tendency to impulse buy if they use a credit card.

Oh absolutely! A large majority of our debt we are carrying from when my husband got injured on his secondary job he took to prepare for maternity leave for me a few years ago, so he was bringing in $67 a week on workers comp and I made $10 an hour. To finally be able to fully be able to recover from that is a dream come true! And thank you for your kind words and well wishes.

 

[CSolis]

Do you have a picture of your round pen? That sounds like a great idea!

I have a NR360 and I love it. I have 2 chicks hatching in it as we speak.

My stumulus money will be buying a shed to convert to a coop. The local high school shop class builds them and I am really excited to support their program

Indeed I do.. not the greatest shot in the world, but works for me.
How I did the door frame was to bolt the cross bar on top and bottom to the outside with the 2x4's going up and down on the inside. If you get my picture. then build a door and hang it. I basically stood in the center of the cattle panel and kept bending the outer edges to me, then tied them in place while I was putting on the door frame.

The pen in the back ground was an older dog pen I had bought for Gator and didn't need. Last year it was around the kitchen garden, and this year it became a 5 x 15 foot run for Prince Charles and his two ladies. Talk about repurposing!

 

[Aunt Tat]

Just wondering if anyone has a wish list of things to buy for their backyard flock/garden/etc... if they had extra money? Since Dear Wife and I will be getting some extra $$$ not normally in our budget, I am wondering if there are things I should be looking at getting for my chickens, the garden, etc... that I would not normally consider buying. I am looking for ideas that might be worth consideration in that help/improve my ability to work around the "homestead" and/or just make life a little bit better.

1) For example, last year I bought and built a cement mixer compost sifter for about $200. At the time, it was a special purchase because I for years I was doing fine with a manual 2x4 framed compost sifter over a wheelbarrow. However, the investment in that $200 cement mixer compost sifter allows me to process so much more chicken run compost for the garden, that it literally paid for itself in a few days use. Also, it's a great labor saver on my old back. So that was money well spent in my book and it related directly to the care of chickens and growing food in the garden.

2) On a smaller scale, the past couple of years I have purchased a few new forks for working compost, wood chips, etc... I used to use a garden pitchfork, or shovel for most of my jobs, but a 5 tine hay pitchfork for compost and my 10 tine manure fork for wood chips just work so much better and, again, saves my old back from a lot of wear and tear. I would not have thought that different forks could make such a difference, but they do. Dear Wife does not understand why I have a collection of different forks, but as I do the work, I know which fork is best suited for the job and they all have a place in my tool shed.

3) For this year, I am considering getting some cattle panels to make a green house, a winter cover for the chickens so they can go outside snow-free, or maybe a trellis in the garden to grow climbing plants. I think that would be good use of some extra stimulus money and those cattle panels would last for many years.

4) The only other project I have in mind is building some new raised garden beds closer to the chicken coop and run. I am thinking of wooden beds, but if someone else has a suggestion I would be glad to consider other thoughts.

Anyway, I hope some of you have been thinking about what you might want to do with extra money for you "homesteading projects" and can offer some ideas to consider. Thanks.

We're HOPING to move and rebuild our 12x12 shed and use the footprint of the shed for a run. We're buying our neighbor's Over EZ coup instead of building a coop, so we can build the run. I


If we CAN'T move the shed, we'll reside it if it doesn't need to be torn out completely and place the coop by the dog kennel (no dogs in there, but our greenhouse is, along with a compost bin). We'll use the fencing/foundation/cinder blocks for one side of the run and build the other side of the run. Total area of the run will be 132 sq ft as opposed to the 144 sq ft we would have with the 12x12 area the shed was on.

This will be for a max of 6 reg. size. hens.

 

[gtaus]

a) Nurture Right 360

Yeah, I had not consider an incubator. Good idea.

 

[gtaus]

My stumulus money will be buying a shed to convert to a coop. The local high school shop class builds them and I am really excited to support their program

I really considered doing the same when I built my chicken coop. I like the advantage of having something that can be still be used if I ever stop having a backyard flock. My coop is good for chickens, but not much else as I built it on an old boat trailer. I like it, but many times I wish I had just converted a shed.

 

[gtaus]

We're HOPING to move and rebuild our 12x12 shed and use the footprint of the shed for a run.

I tried to help a "friend" one time who wanted to move an 8X8 shed. I suggested we lift it up on blocks and slide a trailer under it to move it. He was afraid that his snowmobile trailer was not heavy enough for the shed and he did not want to rent a trailer for ~$75 just to move the shed. So he decided he would take it apart and rebuild it. I told him that I did not think that was a very good idea, because I knew how much more work everything would be and in the end, I doubted he had the skills to rebuild it back to original condition.

To make a long story short, he spent a few days tearing apart the shed, moved it to the new location on another property, and they rebuilt it in such a poor way over a number of weeks that it looked like a make shift thrown together project. Essentially, he destroyed a $1000.00 shed thinking he would save some money on the trailer rental to move it intact. It was a terrible mistake.

Point is, moving a large shed is a real project and I hope you think everything through before committing to the project. If the shed if worth anything, I hope you can move it intact and save it. Best wishes.