Pallets part 1

Pallets are a gift to anyone with a little patience.

If you go to your local builders merchants and ask the blokes in the yard they will load you up and send you on your way. Because of the current waste regulations they are not supposed to throw them away, they have to pay an authorised waste company to take them, no wonder they are grateful to get rid of a car load for free.

If you're lucky they'll usually just point you to the heap in the corner and say help yourself. That way you can be a little selective and pick out the better wood. Now the great thing about builders merchants is that not only do you get the standard 'square' type but you'll also get the 8 foot by 4 foot type that sheets of plaster board come on.

It goes without saying be reasonably quick, leave the area tidier than when you arrived and make sure the yard foreman knows you've tidied up for him and that you've gone. It's a good thing to get a relationship going.

So, you've got a pile of pallets.

If you're after firewood them just chop them up and use a strong magnet wrapped in a plastic bag to pull the nails out of the ash when you spread it on the garden. Turn the bag inside out catching the old nails so your magnet doesn't get covered in sharp metal filings.

You don't always need to break them apart. Compost heaps and fences can be made from whole pallets. I once made a false floor in a barn with whole pallets nailed together and supported on bricks with a bit of old plastic in between as a damp proof course. Covered with sheets of hardboard, 12 years on I believe it is still there.

But if you do need to break them up here are some tips.

1) Bone dry ones come apart easier than ones that have been stood out in the rain so if you can get them under cover to dry out you'll save yourself some effort.

2) If you are going for the quick route of breaking them up then there is a best sequence. Don't use a hammer but use another plank from a pallet wedged between the slats as a lever. This spreads the load, gives you more leverage and splits less of the planks. Start with the slats that are not nailed into one of the blocks of wood. Start at one end. Even though the nails will be bent over they are so poor quality they will straighten out as you lever. Then the middle. Then just hold the free end of the slat you are removing and lift it up to finish the job. It's not fool proof and sometimes the twisting on the slat will split it.
Flip the pallet over so the tatty slats that were underneath are now on top. Lever these off, they will most likely split but having been underneath they're probably only firewood anyway.
Now either with the pallet flat or stood on an edge use a hammer and knock the blocks of wood so they begin to lift up. Sometimes they'll just knock right off, other times once you have a gap you'll need to lay the pallet flat again and wedge a nail bar under to prise them up.

3) The long route. If the top slats are in good condition and nice and square and thick it may be worth going the extra mile to get them all off in good condition without the risk of splitting them. BUT IT TAKES TIME.
Use a hand or power saw to cut the pallet up so you end up with all the good slats with bits of wood still nailed onto them. Now use a mallet and an old cold chisel to split apart the scraps of wood and blocks leaving the good slats with the nails in. Cut the nails off with a small bolt cutter to about an inch, they are so poor quality that they'll mostly just bend if you try to knock them back and/or the heads will pull off and most of the nails are the annular type to stop them pulling out anyway. Now knock them through and pull them out with a hammer, having got them moving the heads don't usually pull off.

You'll now have a pile of useful pieces of wood and a pile of firewood.

Part 2 will have some ideas for using the wood you saved.

Keep your own chickens

Keeping chickens is a lot easier than some books and web sites would have you believe and you get fresh eggs too.

Unless you have very tolerant neighbours you don't want to be getting a rooster so what we're talking about here is Hens and when you buy them (unless you plan to start from scratch and hatch your own) they will be at about 18-20 weeks old and about to start laying eggs hence 'point of lay' or POL hens. Hens don't like being alone so you'll want 2 at least and you should expect to pay £8-£12 for each. But you can always check the Battery Hen Welfare Trust website, where you'll find ex battery hens looking for new homes.

When making or buying a hen house you'll want to allow about 10 inches of roosting space for each hen, a branch about 1.5inches thick is ideal set about 6 inches above the hen house floor. If you cover the floor with a bit of lino and then a layer of wood shavings (from your local farm suppliers or horse livery) it will be easy to clean.

Also, allow 1 nest for up to 4 birds. This should be enclosed on 3 sides as the birds like privacy when laying. Crazy as it sounds that's true and if they don't like the nest you provide them they will find a spot in the run or garden and you'll be wondering where the eggs are going. Mine is the size of a desk filing tray - it is a desk filing tray! (it was being thrown out) enclosed in a corner of the hen house with a 3rd piece of plywood. Filled with shredded paper and straw it's easy to lift out and throw in the compost.

I change the nest weekly and the wood shavings fortnightly.

Assuming you will be providing a run for your hens an area of about 3 square feet per hen is plenty for them, put down a covering of bark chips (keep you eyes open as you're driving around and you'll soon find a pile by a roadside put there by the council workmen) and again try and find a bit of branch to provide a perch and if you can, cover the bit of the run over the perch to give them somewhere to go out of the rain and sun.

If you let your hens roam around your garden you'll quickly find they will scratch up the grass and flowers and eat just about anything.

And that's the great thing. You can compost your kitchen scraps or turn them into eggs. Hens love pasta (it's very funny watching them tackle spaghetti), any green leaves, sweetcorn, bread, cake, biscuits, cereals, in fact anything that is left over, spilt on the floor, or has gone a bit green!

But to get the most out of them it is also best to provide a feeder with layers pellets (I do use the organic ones which are expensive but which probably have good quality stuff in them) from the local farmers supply shop. I also have a sack of mixed corn on the go for a treat.

There is nothing quite like finding that first egg and for the first month or 2 they will probably produce a fair number of eggs with 2 yolks. They then settle down to about 5 eggs in 7 days until they have a first moult of feathers at about 18-24 months. They'll stop laying for a few weeks and afterwards will probably only give you 3-4 eggs in 7 days.

Downsides. They are not forever, particularly if like my neighbour you don't put them away every night and the fox gets them. They do get pests. Use piperazine citrate every 6 months to worm them, get it from a vet that deals in livestock, it comes as a pill to dissolve in their water about 7 pence a pill, you'll need 4 for 4 birds. Mites will find their way to your birds eventually and they are nearly impossible to get rid of. There are dusts for the birds and sprays for the henhouse but a strong solution of bleach in an old window cleaner sprayer or kitchen surface sprayer when cleaning out tends to zap quite a few but if it gets really bad just shut the birds out of the house overnight occaisionally and then let loose when the bugs come out after dark!

Every now and then one of your hens will go broody. You'll know when you go looking for her and she's on the nest, you kick her put and she's straight back in there. Left to her own devices she'll sit on the eggs laid by the other birds for 21 days, that's the incubation period for chicken eggs. She won't be laying and it'll take her about 3 weeks to start laying again.

The best way to snap her out of it is to isolate her in one end of the run away from the nest, give her water but no food for 3-4 days and make her sleep outside. While she's broody she'll not let the others in the nest which leads to scuffles.

Now at some point you'll want to add another bird to your flock and you have to expect some hen pecking as the birds assert themselves. It's an interesting dynamic. The top hen will give the incommer a few sharp knocks and that's it, authority is established. But the other birds are more vicious as they don't have that top authority and need to make a point. There are many alleged ways to stop this - none that I have tried have worked, from spraying vinegar over them to keeping them separate for a few days. Again best way is to isolate the new bird at one end of he run for a few days and after that let them sort it out.

Reduce rating 7/10,
Reuse rating 3/10,
Recycle rating 6/10.

Hand Towels

At work I do insist that we only buy hand towels made of recycled paper.

But at the end of the week the bin is stuffed with paper towels that have only been used to dry clean hands and then the whole lot is tossed into the landfill bin wrapped in a rubbish sack.

I'd say recycle the lot but someone will manage to throw a plastic bottle or something else in. Some people, even the quite intelligent ones, just don't seem to get the idea that recycling is a good thing, they just write the rubbish out of their memory as soon as it goes out for collection.

So you have to make a personal effort. I keep a small cardboard box beside my desk for hand towels and another beside my locker for the same + other odd bits of cardboard or paper that can go in the composting bin.

I also have a little plastic box for tea bags and banana skins and stuff that goes in my compost.

It won't save the planet but it does make a difference.

Reduce rating 0/10,
Reuse rating 0/10,
Recycle rating 2/10.