Recycling things into horsey items!

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SpruceRI

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I was thinking the other day of all the things I have made out of bits and pieces, that have cost me nothing - for the horses.

My Dad calls me 'the Womble'!
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Because I make use of the things that I find !!

I'm lucky as we have a chap on our farm who does garden clearances, and comes back with tons of wood and other bits that goes off for burning/recycling....

At his agreement, I can help myself off the piles...

So.... I'd made 3 traditional hayracks.

About 10 pairs of jump wings (they look crap but they do the job!)

I've made gates, nicked rails for slip rails. Made stable doors. Jump fillers. Rug rails, cupboards for tack.

I made a hay shed by stacking wooden pallets and screwing them together with coach bolts. The back and sides are corrugated plastic and metal. OK, I got help with the roof for that one!! The whole thing is covered in roofing felt. Looks hideous
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but has been standing for 8yrs now and still going strong.

The garden clearance man has also returned home with some very good plastic items, so I've had a couple of dustbins for my feed. Boxes for storing things. I've got 2 nice white baths for water troughs.

And recently I needed a stable door grill. Had one on order from local feed merchant, but they were out of stock (£50 too!)

Dad managed to find a really long grill from a breakers yard for a fiver
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I cut it to size with a hacksaw. Attached a strip of wood to one side and then have hinged it so that it shuts independantly of the bottom door, and the remaining half of the grill, used to fill in a gap between the 2 stables.

I'm proud of my 'bodge it, and leg-it' efforts
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What have you made/built out of nothing, all by yourself?

No cheating now..... I'm an office gal, not a mechanic or carpenter
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!!!!!!
 
Nothing, I don't usually have time.

But - my mother phoned yesterday to say she'd seen some fluorescent yellow material for sale in a shop - and did I want any to make road safety stuff for the horses.

So, if anyone is trying to save money, you can buy material to make it, rather than fork out for exercise sheets, etc.

S
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My dads always one for recycling- hence why we lived in a caravan for quite a while when the house was being done up, (its still in that process 20 years on!!) so when the caravans got broken up the wooden floors got used to make stable doors, with aluminium (from the caravan sides) protectors on the top.
The windows in all the stables were from the caravan (still with the openings at the top - obviously not the customary Sheringham pony club manual types but they do the job!).

Pallets and baler twine - much can be created from that pair!!

Before we discovered haylage and had to soak the hay my dad made a nifty lifting and draining device out of some old railings and metal.

Courtesy of the skips at Cadburys, where he used to work, we have a really smart hay trolley on wheels that can be left in the field (it has a braking device to stop in shimmying off anywhere, although the shetland will bash it over to eat hay thats dropped through - neither of the big ones would be that destructive!!).

There's always something thats had a life before it became horsey at ours!

My dads current task is constructing an arena - 18 years of schooling on grass then mud then rock is finally coming to an end - soon!!
 
I keep my feed in plastic dustbins and reuse plastic screw top containers from Lidl (with little ritz biscuity things in) to keep my supplements in.

My grooming kit is in a natty two part bucket that originally had feed in it and I soak my sugar beet in one of the big, square NAF supplement containers.

All my feed buckets are rubber builders buckets.

My stable doors are made from chestnut planking left over from re roofing our house and the cross braces are from the pallets our roofing slates were delivered on. The grille between the two stables is made from our old aluminium bannisters that were hideous in the house but look great in the stable.

The stable roof is held up on pine trunks that we were given after the hurricane last year and the old roofing now keeps the hay dry.

OH welded up a farriery tripod out of metal from an old shop display stand last week.

I have a set of Mini 'bull bars' that are a fantastic rug rack.

I am a firm beliver in recycling and using non horsey items.
 
WOW! Can you come and live with me please? I barely ever have time to BUY the damn stuff, let alone bleddy make it! But I do have a little issue:

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I've got 2 nice white baths for water troughs.

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^I hope you've done something to the edges in case they're sharp.^
 
Not so much making stuff (although I'm probably forgetting lots of stuff that Dad's just 'knocked up' - he was an engineer!) but I do 'rescue' stuff from the house for the yard - boxes & tubs, towels, rags etc.
 
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i know someone whos just customised a reall sheep skin and wool blanket into a numnah, and half pad
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Oh yes, I've got one of those! The sheepskin was 'seconds' in a wool shop in Somerset. It's a nice brown one with not much wool - nice working hunter nunnah!!!
 
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I've got 2 nice white baths for water troughs.

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^I hope you've done something to the edges in case they're sharp.^

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No, they're not sharp. They're rounded off. And of course, they don't bear taps !
 
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