[goosepimple]

In this world of make do and mend, I thought it may be fun if people posted any unusual ideas they have had to help them out for animal housing or otherwise - some of you may have fantastic ideas out there we could all benefit from.  I just posted on the 'Rain' topic about using plastic garden centre mesh on constantly used routes by goats which helps keep their feet unclogged (important in goats) and helps quite well. 
Anyone with a good idea? 
Apologies if this post has been done in the past.

[nic99]

I am currently using a wheelie bin lying on it's side with the lid open and air holes drilled in as a shelter for a few chicken growers. It was left behind in the garden by the previous owners of our house. Waste not, want not!

[Hermit]

I have heard of the old unbunded plastic oil tanks being used as pig arks, we have one ready. We had an aircraft engine packing case for a hen house when we were south, it was a solid wooden box you could walk around in, we just put a door on.

[tizaala]

My milking parlour used to be a school electrical sub-station housing, solid fibreglass made to look like brick and tile construction , On pontoons for moving about , I had it off freecycle, It also doubles up as my slaughterhouse .

[Womble]

Thanks to an idea from Happyhippy, I 'unzipped' a couple of blue plastic barrels, and used the resulting curved sheets to make some superbly robust brooder rings.

The barrel ends have also been pressed into use as wee ponds for our new ducklings.

[suziequeue]

That's great Womble. I'm using a blue plastic barrel for my chicken plucking machine

[YorkshireLass]

Split wellies?

Cut the leg and open it out (so it lies flat). Ta-da - roofing tile! Or flexible hinge...or gutter....

[benkt]

The coop for our khaki campbells was made from a table tennis table a local church let us have when they were chucking it out. Zipped it in half with the bench saw and added some felt for a roof - perfect!

[NormandyMary]

Our last henhouse was made from one of 2  shipping crates, previously used to transport BMW engines. They were very well made, The other was converted into the goathouse and is proving to be a great home for the boys.

[Bangbang]

last year I made a sheep shelter from excess hay bales, work fine
for about 3 weeks then they ate it! 

[benkt]

Ah yes, I forgot the goose shed made from the shipping crate that one of our members scavenged from outside the engineering lab at the university. I believe it was originally used to deliver some kind of spectrometer  but worked perfectly well as a goose house.

[colliewoman]

Split wellies?

Cut the leg and open it out (so it lies flat). Ta-da - roofing tile! Or flexible hinge...or gutter....

What a fab idea!
I live next to Glastonbury festival and I reckon that all except 3 people leave their wellies behind every year!
I'm gonna have me a multi coloured goat house roof next year

[Plantoid]

Split wellies?

Cut the leg and open it out (so it lies flat). Ta-da - roofing tile! Or flexible hinge...or gutter....

What a fab idea!
I live next to Glastonbury festival and I reckon that all except 3 people leave their wellies behind every year!
I'm gonna have me a multi coloured goat house roof next year

 An aquaitance of ours has an outside earth clodgy made from all sorts of recycled stuff  , it has a straightened out 45 gallon oil drum for the door and a whole roof of opened up green wellies that were ex employees kit at the organic farm where he is manager.

I recycled the old unbunded fuel oil tank  by slicing it along the seam to give two 600 litre halves initially for use after cleaned and weathered as an elongated mini pond in the garden . Disability kicked in hard and I ended up giving them away to a Freecycler a for tanks for growing water cress in .
 They were going to use a hill stream to divert /extract water to a lower point down the hill to them via a 150 mtr length of 22 mm poly prop pipe . The cress was to be sold as a niche product from a Welsh source to all sorts of places..

[mab]

Yorkshirelass's split wellies reminded me:-

 when I was fixing the roof of my house in Suffolk (trad. red norfolk pantiles), I ran out of unbroken tiles, so for the cracked tiles I raided the re-cycle bin for 2litre pop bottles; I cut the ends off and unzipped the tube to give a rectangle of plastic that was exactly the right size to slide under the tiles and channel the water onto the tile below.

the dog (and I) lived in the house so I guess that counts as animal housing.

m

[SallyintNorth]

Beer barrels and blue plastic bins for dog beds / kennels.

I have made a broody house out of a chest of drawers and another out of one of those cuboid plastic water containers.

Tractor tyres for lamb shelters and for dog beds.

Two Crystalyx buckets face-to-face with a hole cut in makes a good nest box for hens, or bed for cat.

Other things besides animal housing :

niddy noddy out of chair leg and cross piece

lazy kate out of empty Crystalyx bucket, wooden skewers and elastic bands

cheese and wool drain hanging off a walking stick balanced between the freezer and worktop in the larder

my milking stool is an upturned empty 80kg mineral bucket, as is my mounting block