I have lots of Aspens around my place so I cut down some of the smaller ones Approx 2-3" and made my roosts. Nailed them to some 2x4s. Square roosts aren't good for birds anyways.

Old wooden ladders make good roosts. You can put them at an angle and the birds won't poop on each other. Or put them across.
I dumpster dive at a fleamarket...to my husbands horror...and get the thin wood crates that corn and vegetables come in. The hens like them as nesting boxes and I use them for quite a few things.
Dry fall leaves for litter inside of the chicken coop and then we use it as compost.
I reuse old feed bags for garbage.
This is a bumper apple year in Ohio and so many people are happy to have them cleaned up from their yards. I store the apples in the crates I dumpster dived for and give them to my pigs, goats and horses. The chickens like them too.
A local bread outlet sells "animal bread" for $8 per 100 loaves. They don't advertise it, you have to ask the manager. It is usually their speciality breads like honey, whole wheat, rye. And I give it to the farm animals for treats.
I get buckets from grocery store bakeries. They get frosting and puddings in them and then sell the washed empties for under a dollar.
That's a few of the things I do around here.

I have old apple boxes for nesting boxes, they work great. the coop part is up a ways and I used the top of an old broken picnic bench for the ramp

Chicken manure is some of the hottest you can put in your compost bins. Be sure to add enough other ingredients when you compost your chicken droppings to take full advantage of the high nitrogen level. We have 8 compost bins and when I clean out the hen house, all of them will get used.

Our compost bins are made out of old wood pallets that we pick up here and there. We usually keep a few extras on hand in case one or more becomes so composted itself that we have to replace it. Stand four of them on their sides to form a box, leaving one side open. It's not real pretty, but it really works well.

We constructed paths in the vegetable garden using old asphalt roofing shingles. They stop the grass from growing and after a few hot days they kind of fuse together to form a solid walkway.

When I have "volunteers" come up in flower beds I take them up and use cut-down milk jugs to pot them up. Then I give them friends and neighbors or take them to the swap meets.

Cheryl

Thanks for sharing your creativeness.
Hey......I happen to have a couple of those really old ladders..
I'll be using them as my roosts. (thanks Backlanelady)
It really makes me feel good when I'm able to make something I need, verses paying a lot of money for something.
From the searchs I've been doing and reading on this forum I'm learning a lot.
Thanks!!!!

I use cardboard, brown heavy corrugated, for walkways in the garden. I live a few blocks from an industiral area and go there early on their garbage day. I pick up large bundles of cut boxes to use for this.

I also get old moldy hay from farmers for nothing and use that in the garden and for landscaping. It goes over cardboard for landscaping where I don't want grass to grow. I'm using them to make lasagna beds this fall too.

okay, I'm gonna have to ask

what is a "lasagna bed"???

Hi,

Is cardboard safe to use-it use to contain may very toxic chemicals-some PCBs (same stuff that was in agent orange in Vietnam)?

Newspaper is good with b/w ink-not colored.

I too want to know "lasagna bed" what are they?