DIY Your Coop with Scrap Lumber
Courtesy of Wrangler Network contributor Scoop from the Coop
Backyard flock owners tinker with their coop attempting to increase chicken comfort while making flock management easier. There’s always need for lumber for a new pop hole door, roost, or angled boards to keep birds from perching and pooping on otherwise horizontal surfaces. Only modest carpentry skill are needed to craft them and make waterer stands, feeders, and many other useful items. Even making a new modest sized coop isn’t difficult and can be mostly built with free scrap wood.
It’s possible to buy almost everything a well-equipped coop needs. Feeders, waterers, nests, and even gourmet specialty food are stocked in stores that sell chicks each spring. But, shopping for chicken needs can get expensive. A solution is finding and using free lumber and to craft coops and chicken furniture at home.
FINDING FREE LUMBER
Plenty of useful lumber, plywood, and insulation are free for the asking and hauling. Often building sites, industrial and shipping areas, and stores that sell large items are great sources for free wood.
CONSTRUCTION SITES
One of the first items to appear when a house is about to be built is a dumpster. Carpenters regularly toss lumber, insulation, and plywood into it to be hauled off to the landfill. Since everything in the dumpster is new wood it’s clean and often nail free. Sometimes even full sized 2x4s are tossed in the trash. Visit the site when carpenters are working and ask if it’s ok to remove items. They’ll usually happily grant permission. After all anything that gets hauled off reduces the cost of disposal to the builder.
STORES
Motorcycles, garden tractors, and machinery of all sorts are often shipped in wooden crates. Once at the store employees remove the items and toss the wood in the dumpster. Again, asking usually secures permission to take wood. Crate wood is normally new but may have some nails in it.
PALLETS
Every day two billion pallets are shipped virtually everywhere in the world. Many are reused, but far too many companies simply toss them in piles and eventually pay to have them hauled to a landfill. Most pallets are perfectly safe to use for dozens of projects, while others could be hazardous.
Look for piles of pallets near businesses that ship or receive large quantities of heavy items. Companies are often happy to have people remove them to save disposal cost.
It’s important to understand pallets to choose and those that are most useful, easiest to reconstruct, and safe. Many pallets have the logo of the International Plant Protection Convention or IPPC printed on the wood. They also contain printed codes. Pallets shipped long distances are usually treated to kill insect pests or their eggs that may be hiding in the wood, waiting to hitch a ride to a new place to infest.
Pallets bearing the IPPC logo have been treated to kill pests. Most have “HT” printed on them in bold black letters. This stands for HEAT TREATED and means they were baked in an oven to kill insects. Avoid any pallet marked “MB”. This means it was treated with methyl bromide, a toxic chemical that could be hazardous to humans and chickens. Also avoid pallets that have had chemicals spilled on them. Some pallets shipped smaller distances domestically may be unmarked.
It helps to be able to identify the species of wood used to make pallets. Usually they are fabricated from spruce or pine, which are soft, easy to work, and light in color. Other pallets are made from oak, ash, elm, or even exotic hardwoods. These often are darker in color than softwoods and are heavier and more durable. These woods are expensive to buy at the lumberyard but free from the pallet pile.
Deconstructing a Pallet
Often wood scrounged from construction sites are short boards that are new, clean, and free of nails. No extra work is needed to put them to use. Pallets and crates, in contrast, are held together by nails and screws. They must be deconstructed before use in the coop.
These tools are very helpful for deconstructing a pallet or crate:
• Claw hammer
• Pry bar
• Nail puller
• Pliers
• Saw – Cordless crosscut saw can be very useful
• Leather gloves
• Hearing protection – Ear muffs or plugs
Some companies even sell special prying tools for removing boards but they aren’t essential.
There are many ways to disassemble a crate or pallet but the most common way is to use a pry bar and hammer to separate nailed boards. Sometimes boards split when pried, but these make excellent kindling for starting fires. Pull nails with the pry bar or specially pulling tool, but be careful. Wear leather gloves. Discard nails in a container.
A quicker way to deconstruct a pallet is to use a power saw to cut the boards free of the 2x4s they are usually nailed to. It works fine but results in shorter boards.
For detailed information on pallets and projects that can be made from them check www.1001pallets.com/pallet-safety.
Once free wood has been gathered, denailed, and stacked it’s time to begin converting it into useful chicken projects. Salvaging wood otherwise destined for the landfill saves money and feels good.