What items have you repurposed for use around the farm?

I buy toilet brushes from the dollar store to clean buckets, stock tanks, etc. Recycling all the parts from our old farrowing crates as trellis in the garden. Put all my peas on some, made an arch for morning glories out of some, etc.

We got given about 50 of those 300 gallon plastic totes with the cage and the valve at the bottom, now they're showing up all over the farm. Lid cut off and rehinged for bulk feed storage out at the chicken tractors. Great cisterns for garden water. Wall sections for various fences- even the hogs can't move a full one. 300 gallons of water at 8#/gallon is 2,400# plus the weight of the tote.

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I've got a dozen or so heavy plastic skylights. They are about 2 x 3 feet and 6" deep. They make great mobile cold frames, either by themselves or mounted on wood frames.

My mom drinks a lot of coke in 2 liter bottles, I take those and re make them into water wells for the garden. I fill up my bucket from the pond or water barrels and it is easy from there to deep water the garden. My youngest daughter crib that was not fit to be passed on to someone else is now used to partition off a stall for goat kids at night. The bottom became the top to a rabbit hutch. We repurposed an old table into a milk stand. We also repurposed some old commercial conveyor belts into mats for the barn aisleways. They make cleaning the barn so easy now. Old syrup barrels from the coke plant have become planters, water troughs, feed buckets, an outdoor solar shower, and anything else we can think of. The drawers from an old dresser, some coke cans, and an old window became a solar heater for my oldest child's bedroom. An old two piece (top and bottom) dog house became two duck houses. We repurpose everything that we can think of to re-purpose. The previous owner left all her "junk" here when she left. The attic was full, both hay lofts in the barn were full, the work shed was full. We hauled off a lot of stuff that really was junk, but have been using up what we could as it saves us the gas and time of hauling it off. Plus it is free material so saves money there also. Whenever I need something around here we go looking through the junk to see if we can find something to use. Blessings, Kat

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Yesterday we used sections of PVC pipe as rollers to roll a heavy freezer up into the back of a pickup. Before that I used them to move the freezer to the door by myself with very little work.

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When we moved here, there was one of the car top carriers, I think they were called snails or something? Anyway, the top makes a great sled for hauling hay and firewood and anything else in the winter when the snow is too deep for the wheel barrow. Apparently it also makes a fine sled on ice.

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We get old worn out freezers from the local dump. Down at the barn, they make great feed storage containers. No rodents can get in them.

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I'll second the chest freezer/grain bin and the bathtub/stock tank. The best repurpose here though-we got a dinged up old bulk tank, took out the paddle, cut a nose hole in the lid and insulated the top with polystyrene. Makes THE BEST winter water tank, as it's insulated, and stainless steel, so easy to clean up, and it's got the valve to empty it out.
Used a bed liner upside down on a wall of old square bales for an improvised calf hutch one time.

Does it still pass smog inspection?!

I've recycled old bed frames into garden trellises, the boards on old spring mattresses into rabbit/bird cages, the old station wagon makes a good place to start seeds when I run out of room in the greenhouse.

Oh and I re-purpose roosters into dinner all the time.

an old set of bed springs make a great finish drag for the garden leaves the clods borken down fine enough for seeding lettuce .
I turned a couple steel wheels and some old guard caging into a yard cart that never gets flats (a big plus when you have ozark orange and black locust trees )

We use bathtubs for feed, water and whey troughs.

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Wow great ideas guys! We've turned an old fiberglass 12ft. boat into a strawberry bed, tires go around tomatoes, wore out chickens water became an auto cat feeder by cutting larger holes around the bottom for the food to come down and a larger hole at the top for easier filling. Old tub for goat water....I'm sure over the years there's been more reusing of things than I can think of but it sure saves a ton of money reusing things instead of buying....and sometimes it becomes a much more creative solution than originally thought. Keep in mind I have also had many times where I've tried something with an odd object and ended up explaining red faced what I was trying and how it didn't work lol

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For those defunct iron rake heads, fix them to a wall and use different lenth boot lace loops on your garden tools. You can hang a dozen tools in a 1 x 2" space, all easy to see and grab, and best of all, put back!

I repurposed 2 old chain link dog kennels after the dogs were no longer with us. One is 10 X 10 and has a mesh roof and door. It is now my Garden Room. No deer or other critters allowed. I can hang tools and Topsy Turvey planters on the links.

The other is 4 X 8 and is now our outdoor shower spa. I made a peaked roof with chicken wire fencing and can put the stalk of a palmetto frond thru that and am "thatching" a roof that way. I will also shingle palmetto fronds thru the chain link fence part until we have a Tiki Hut. The floor is patio stones. We have a plastic yard chair, a kiddy pool, and a fire bowl in there. I may just live there this summer, LOL.

I've been buying broken handled axe, maul, and hammer heads, rakes, and shovels at garage sales for a buck a piece. Now I'm carving handles for them out of ash saplings.

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Libertarindependent

Hmm, well, I was going to say those truck canopys work great as chick brooders too. The turkeys got too tall, so we put one up on a row of concrete blocks so they quit hitting their heads. And of course all the stuff you can do with blue plastic 55 gallon barrels: feeders & waterers out of the top and bottom 1/3, then use the middle 1/3 to plant sweet potatoes in. And my son built me a WhizBang Chicken plucker out of one, too.
Then as I read everyone elses' lists, I recognized many things we've done too that I didn't even remember! I wish I had access to some of the other reusable things people mentioned!
Kit

I fill up my trunk and back seat (and sometimes front seat) with bags of paper shreddings from work (be careful what you ask for!!!) and use to bed down our chicken coops. Scared the chickens the first day but now they love it.

Not a 'have done' but a 'want to do'

I see the frames of those outdoor screened rooms (the kind Target and Kmart sell) at yard sales sometimes for cheap. I want to get one and cover it with chicken wire, cattle panels, whatever - then turn it into an outdoor cat room. It sounds good in theory, we'll see how it works in real life...

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I used the framework from an old metal gazebo to make the 'aviary' part of the chicken's run.

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I'm using round bale netting (from opened bales) under mulch to help with erosion control on banks. My brother is going to drape some of the same netting over his grape vines for bird control.

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