For anyone concerned about the welfare of my chickens, I will start this piece with the disclaimer that NO CHICKENS WERE HARMED in the writing of this content. 

As my regular readers will know, I spend a lot of time talking about my chickens because they simply take a lot of my time. 

For anyone thinking they can make a quick bawk, I would say this little side hustle isn’t entirely cheep. 

That being said I came home from opening day of hunting this past weekend to trudge into my foyer and begin disrobing the camo, orange, and boots I’d been in all day. My rubber boots were a tad tired, as they’d sustained cracks and cuts and were no longer watertight above the ankle. 

As I stepped out of them, my heel hit the choke point in the ankle of the boot and to my dismay suddenly burst through the rear of the neoprene above the rubber. 

With the rip started, I first tried to restart the extraction of my foot without causing further damage, but I realized this boot was not long for this earth. I made the acknowledgment and wrenched my foot free, tearing the ankle area most of the way around in the process. 

After this, I was able to pull off the neck and mouth of the boot and was left with two pieces. Thinking they would end up in the trash I joked to my wife that I had a new set of chicken kickers for trudging out in the mud around their huts. 

Even as I joked, we both looked at each other like a couple of newborn geniuses—we both thought that was actually a pretty good idea. 

I took a razor blade to the other boot, which had cuts around the same area already anyhow, and cut it down to match. 

I slipped them on like a pair of hearty loafers and laughed at how comfortable they were. The bottoms were still waterproof and perfect for walking in the mud and rain, and I wouldn’t have to put on full boots. 

Naturally I took them for a spin and set out with an ounce more excitement than normal to feed and water the chickens for the evening. Unlike my Crocs, these shoes kept me up and out of the slick ground and protected my feet from excrement that fell from the roosting bars onto my feet. 

I may never throw away another old set of rubber boots again. They’re not unlike other gardening slippers or rubber farm shoes I’ve seen—but why buy new ones when you can use an old pair of boots to do the same thing and get twice the life out of them?

Rubber seemed to be the theme for the day because on the way home, we had stopped at Tractor Supply to get a couple of new buckets for winter watering. 

We’ve always struggled with the water situation in the winter because of the obvious problem. Freezing temps. The chickens do just fine, but the water buckets not so much. If you use a hard plastic bucket or dispenser, it freezes and breaks. If you use a heated waterer, it works well for a bit and then decides to leak, die or just not work the way you want it to. 

After talking to some Mennonite friends of ours, we landed on an option we didn’t think we would like that much, but has ultimately been the better way to go. We use a lower three-gallon bucket in each hut and refill from a large five-gallon bucket each day. The trick to making this extra efficient is using rubber buckets that can be turned over and stomped on to get ice out. These are also extra insulative, so they take longer to freeze. 

By keeping these inside the chicken buildings, the buckets stay warmer than if they were in the yard or even underneath the building, in the spot where the chickens come out before entering the yard. 

By filling the five-gallon bucket inside, we only carry out one container to carry out to fill both water buckets.

The way out here, we wear things until we wear them out, and then we figure out how the broken pieces can still be used. We might not be made of money, but it’s the simple things that work best most of the time anyway. So if you have some old boots you want turned into yard slippers, feel free to employ the services of a poor writer with a pocketknife for your cobbling needs.