pallet animal housing

[InHisName]

Have you successfully used pallets for animal shelter/housing? Any pics? Need some shelters, thinking low budget.

[Trisha in WA]

reposting from S&EP
I made something like this for my calves It was really inexpensive and when I was done using it, I could use the cattle panels for something else.
http://www.ericsprojects.com/?page_id=228
It worked really well. Here is a picture of mine. We just built it with scrap lumber we had on hand.

[fishhead]

I cobbled together a shelter for my birds out of pallets. It was temporary so I only made it 4' high. That made it difficult to get the birds out when I took them to the processor. I had to duck walk in and out for almost every bird.

I have seen a website with some nice buildings made from pallets.

Be sure to get them all the same size. It will speed up construction.

[sassafras manor]

The wholesale greenhouse i run receives our compressed bales of peat moss on heavy duty pallets out of Canada. The runners are true 2x4's and the decking is made from 1x4's that are spaced 1" apart. They are very rigid and sturdy and free! I built our garden shed using 4 - 4x4 posts on each corner and then used scrap pieces of 2x4's to join the pallets together and to also join them to the 4x4 posts. The garden shed used 4 pallets on each side, 5 across the back and then 6 for the roof. Then i took the next step and built our original chicken coop out of pallets as well. I built in openings for a people door, 4 windows in the walls as well as a chicken door. All together i believe that it used just under 40 pallets for the 4 sides and roof. After that i built a similar size turkey coop with a small loafing shed attached for the goat/calves. All together i would imagine that i have used between 80-90 pallets between the buildings. I must admit that we did use standard pole barn construction last winter on our 30' x 80' barn! I will try to post pictures in the future.

[CarolynRenee]

I'm sure we'd all LOVE to see those pics one day sassafras (hint-hint)!

We have a stack of pallets, although they aren't the greatest. We've made one goat hut, but just used the pallet for the base so we can move it around with the forks on the tractor. I'd been toying with the idea of just using other pallets for the walls & then just put some sort of siding on it & a roof, but haven't got around to it yet.

If the pallets you have are really good, like the ones sassafrass has, you could also carefully take apart the boards & use them individually. d

Good luck & happy recycling!

[Backfourty,MI.]

We were going to use pallets to make a shelter for our turkeys we bought in the spring & were going to be butchered this past fall but only 1 of the 3 turkeys lived to size big enough to go outside so he lived with our ducks.
next year we will use the pallets for a turkey house though.

The turkey that lived to butcher size dressed out at 43 pounds! We will be getting some more of those in the spring.

We do use pallets also for gates on our goat pen's or stalls in the barn too, they work great.

[Troy]

I've used pallets in the past to build Chicken Coops and Turkey Sheds. I've even used them as a quick pen for new incoming animals to keep them seperated away from other animals until I think all are clean and safe.

Sorry no pics , but you will be suprised what you can do with your imagination.

[Belfrybat]

I made a duck hut from pallets -- three-sided structure, one pallet per side with a couple of 2x4s laid across the top and a pallet on that. Skinned it with some old tin I had laying around. It made a great sturdy structure. The only problem was sometimes they would lay inside and crawling through duck poop to get to the eggs was not pleasant. If I were ever to do that again, I'd build it two pallets high.

[oberhaslikid]

I needed some breeder pens for my chickens and built these out of pallets.They are 8x8 divided in the center with chicken wire.

[highlands]

Originally Posted by InHisName

Have you successfully used pallets for animal shelter/housing? Any pics? Need some shelters, thinking low budget.

All the time. Pallets are great building blocks for fencing and shelters. Nothing fancy, just holds up the roof and blocks the wind & rain. Here is a link to tags in my blog about animal shelters which among other things includes pallet construction:

http://flashweb.com/blog/tag/animal-housing

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

[ET1 SS]

[ET1 SS]