Chicken coop made from reused materials

front of the coop, with the back
shown in inset

Pre-weathered wood makes for a great-looking home for some backyard chickens

I've been bringing you creative reuses from my colleagues lately and here's another one. A lovely woman I work with, Cathy, sent me these pics and description: 

My husband made this chicken house from mostly reused materials. The outside wood is from an old cedar fence. The rest of the wood & hardware came from the Rebuild Center and scraps he had on hand. The only exception is the hardware cloth, it was purchased new. I love the end result!  

I do, too, Cathy-that's a classy coop for your cluckers!

Those are some happy hens!

back of coop-showing egg and hen access

Creatively Reuse a Canoe as a Duck Pond

What do you do when you have new ducks that need some H2O to play in? You build them a pond, of course. Might as well use some things you have sitting around, taking up space..

Earlier, I wrote about one of my colleagues that sends me his creative reuse projects and I also mentioned that I liked this one even more. One of the things I really like about the way in which I got this email was that I got to read the whole thing and then click on the picture. I was more impressed than I even thought I was going to be. Now, I've already told you in the title of this post what he used for the pond, but here are his words, straight from the email I got. It should properly set the scene for you:

My new ducks LOVE water.. in fact they need it ... they are waterfowl after all...
Two of these birds (the females) are supposed to lay about 300 eggs a year.... that's better than some chickens!
And the Drakes here quack a little.. but they don't go cock-a-doodle-do all day long.. so they are legal in the city... so I can make baby ducks next year too!
Anyway... I needed a quick pond... so I improvised with an obsolete item that has been sitting for a few years..
Then I found these cute little boardwalks in the woodpile out behind {Name of business redacted, just in case}... they make the perfect poop deck for hanging out next to the new pond...
Then I went to the restore and got all the plumbing (CHEAP!) to put a drain in... and it works!  So I water plants with the dirty water (nutrient rich water that is, for plants)...
So there's my reuse project from last weekend...beats buying a cheap Chinese kiddie pool... which just cracks eventually anyway...
B

Heh heh heh...Poop decks, indeed

I hope I didn't ruin the surprise too much for you. So cool...