Refurbished Freebies and Integration Questions

I was in the city last week delivering eggs to a friend, when I spotted some weathered but otherwise decent  wicker chairs sitting out by the dumpster. I’ve been looking for something like this to put on our bedroom deck, so I nabbed them.

In need of a little TLC.
 

I bought a couple of cans of “Canyon Black” spray paint, and after just a few minutes of work per chair, they were looking good as new. Total cost: about $10. Not bad.

Ready for hosting our evening gin & tonic.
 
Our latest batch of chicks is arriving early next week, and I’ve been doing some research on how best to integrate them with the existing flock. Does anyone out there have experience with this, and would you be willing to share your ideas?
We’ve got several broody hens at the moment, so I’m contemplating letting the girls raise them instead of keeping them inside in the brooder. I’ve read that letting hens raise them can make it easier for them to be accepted into the flock, and that the adopted mothers will do a good job of protecting them should problems arise. If I do this, I’m thinking of putting a large dog crate or other shelter into either the run or chicken tractor, and letting them live there until the chicks are old enough to move in with the general population, but worry about the possibility of the bear returning (my husband saw her in the park near our house 2 weeks ago).
If I decide to raise them in the house without the hens, what’s the best way to introduce them to the group, and at what age?


7 thoughts on “Refurbished Freebies and Integration Questions”

  • Love you blog!!!
    The chairs are so nice!!! You are lucky to have found them!!! I have an old metal chair from my Grandma's farm that I need to scrape and repaint. I am thinking I could spread a tarp on the drive and scrape there so any errant dust would not end up in edible landscaping…? I have edible landscaping almost everywhere 🙂
    You've got me Motivated!!!!
    Thanks Bunches!!!!!!!!

  • WhatIf – Thank you for your nice comments! Your chair sounds great. I found a natural orange-based paint stripper that worked well (I mentioned it in a post about stripping doors), and it did a good job of keeping the dust from flying around. Good luck with your project!

    Janeywan – Thank you for the link, it looks great!

  • HOW much do I love refurbished things?
    So nice to see someone else's "junk" and make it look stellar.
    Nicely done with the back spray paint – so much more interesting than the typical bright white (which shows a lot of dirt anyways…)

  • Nice bit of skip-dipping, lovely chairs. It should be illegal to throw that sort of stuff away. How about if one had to find a new caring owner for the old before one had the right to go shopping for new stuff. Capitalism thrives on consumerism, whisking manufactured goods as quick as possible to the dump, so that people go out and buy something new. They're not just great chairs, they're ecological, political statements … bravo!

  • Lindsey – Thanks, I like the black a lot more than white too. It seems more modern or something.

    S&G – I totally agree that we should be responsible for finding a way of dealing with our old stuff before replacing it, I bet there'd be a lot less waste!

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