Why All The "Junk"?

[gryeyes]

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Because I'm a white trash redneck ignorant bozo and a Curmudgeon besides.

<*snort*>

Thanks, DM, I just snorted the vodka I was drinking out of a jelly glass.

And yet, I agree with both BrattishTaz and Imp. Whole-heartedly.

 

[hemet dennis]

I have been doing so much with so little for so long, that now I think i can do anything with nothing

 

[Clay Mudd]

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+1.

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Agreed.


Golly, I hope your post doesn't offend anybody.

 

[Marcymom3]

This has been a very interesting thread to read. I have an image or stereotype (I know ...that's bad) of people who raise chickens for their eggs as folks who are interested in a cleaner, maybe earthier way of doing things. Building from reclaimed material seems to be an offshoot of that. As someone pointed out, great coops can be built from "junk" and terrible ones from new materials. When you get down to it, like everything else, it is about what you're comfortable with and what your budget will allow. Most of the coops that people post on here that are made from salvaged materials are amazing, and they are right to be proud of them!

Before our landfill became part of the bureaucracy, hubs used to bring home more than he took there.

Being a carpenter he knew the value of the stuff people were throwing away. Over the years we saved lots of money using other peoples' trash and turning it into our treasure. All that being said, hubs let our 5 year old granddaughter talk him into buying our Amish built chicken coop. LOL... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

[Clay Mudd]

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Nicely put. I used to have a neighbor who was a master at what he called "trash picking". He'd go off to the landfill, and come back with motors from discarded appliances, power tools and small appliances that only needed minor repair, and so forth. There were quite a few times when he'd save me from having to buy something by digging around in his junk for the right part.

 

[threeduckfarm]

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I don't think your coop looks like junk at all. You took what perhaps was junk and made it into something nice. There are lots of coops made out of pallets that were thrown out as junk that look fantastic. Recycling is not just good for the wallet but also good for the enviroment when it's done well. I think Carols Clucks makes very good points though about how having junk coops that can be seen from the street isn't doing much to promote chicken keeping in the city. Our city allows chickens but most neighborhoods with HOAs don't allow them because there are coops in town that you drive by that look like absolute crap. Rotted wood held up by more rotten wood with tarp held down by bricks as a roof. In the country you can get away with that but not in the city.

 

[guignol]

i take a special satisfaction in using recycled materials in all my projects. in fact the small coop i just built is made with scraps left over from other things i had puttered together... using mostly found materials already. so it's like double recycling! i have a cellar workshop full of odds and ends that i've picked up here and there: "this may come in handy some day"... though god only knows what for... until the day, perhaps years later, when it's just the ticket!

in describing how primitive man thought up his myths, the great anthropologist claude lévi-strauss (nothing to do with blue jeans) made a very interesting distinction between the engineer and the putterer: an engineer envisages his project ideally, and then procures all the materials and tools necessary to carry out the plan as conceived. the putterer has at his disposal a finite set of materials and tools; his project will be the reflection of those, and also of his inventiveness in understanding all the possibilities these allow him... including some for which they were not initially intended. he saw no hierarchy in the two methods; both were equally valid, and both can show true genius. and to quote the great man:

but there is more: the poetry of puttering comes also, and above all, from the fact that it isn't limited to accomplishing or carrying out; it speaks of the character, and of the life, of the person who's doing it.

the moral of the story? a "junk" coop can look very nice, or like junk. and the difference is not one of money or of materials.

 

[Marcymom3]

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Well said, guignol! Something like class?

 

[egglicious]

I feel bad for Uncle Marc. I hope he doesn't leave BYC because of all the insensitive comments.

I am pretty new to chicken keeping, but definitely consider myself on the "greener" side of things. It's great to recycle. What I have observed since I became part of the chicken keeping community is that there is a sort of culture that has been created. It looks to me that DIY chicken coop projects, especially made from salvaged materials are very much a part or that culture. I think that is great... but there is something I have to say. Here goes:

I live in a relatively high end neighborhood and could afford to buy a coop, so I bought a (gasp!) Eglu. Before I bought it I did some research and found that folks get downright evangelical about building a coop yourself (no offense to actual Evangelicals) and spending next to nothing doing so. I think that's great, I really do, but I started to feel judged for not going that route. Before long I became afraid to say that I have an Eglu. I have spent a crazy amount of $$ on my chickens but I love them and it's fun for me. I am not a snob. Yet, somehow I feel like kind of an outcast here sometimes. Sorry but I just don't have the time and definitely not the skilll that many of you have to build my own coop.

Just thought I would share my experience.

 

[wolftracks]

Been watching this thread since the first post, but lost track.

I was kind of waiting for a really great reason. Just something new other than the obvious.

I hope this thread continues, but I'd like to know people's reasons too. I do it, because I'm broker than broke. I have to come up with idead so I can support my chicken, now quail and rabbit habbit.

I don't care what anyone puts togther or if they or someone else thinks it looks junkie. As long as the birds are comfortable that;s what matter. Heck I've used new AND used amterials and keep taking things apart and starting over, cause I can't get anything to look or work right. I admire everyone who gets it done.