If you raise animals on a smaller scale like us, then you always have empty feed bags on hand. Between feeding our rabbits and chickens daily, we started finding ways to reuse feed bags without even trying!
The 50-pound feed bags you get from the local Tractor Supply or feed store are strong, durable, and nearly waterproof. To throw so many of them out all the time started to seem silly.
So instead, we saved them and put them in a pile in our barn. After a while, we just started reaching for them, and it was for the most random things! If you are wondering how you can reuse feed bags then keep reading. I’d love to share some of our favorite uses with you.
Let’s check it out…
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Insulation And Cover
We reuse feed bags to fill in gaps in chicken coops and other weird buildings or areas. They are so easy to bunch into corners or squeeze into tight gaps. Plus they are great barriers to the wind, rain, and snow, keeping your animals warm and safe!
There is also an old feed bag hanging over the chicken feeder to prevent rain from falling through the top!
Related Post: 11 Mistakes We Made Raising Meat Chickens For The First Time
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Bag Guts
One way we are always reusing our feed bags is by bagging guts up on butchering day. We raise our own meat chickens, egg-laying chickens, and meat rabbits. We also hunt regularly on our 80-acre land.
In the past, we’ve used garbage bags in crates, and they were always falling over and making such a mess. The guts are just something you don’t want to touch.
Thankfully these feed bags have great structure to them and stay upright. They are also big enough to hold everything without ripping or breaking. It makes it so easy to wipe the guts right off the butchering table into the bag.
In the future, we hope to have a way to bury or compost a majority of the guts and animal discard, but for now, these feed bags are serving a much-needed purpose, and they are free!
This is our most common and favorite way to recycle and reuse feed bags.
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Reuse Feed Bags As Garbage Bags
On the same note, we also use the feed bags to bag up so many random odds and ends. For example, if some sort of glass breaks, a regular trash bag just won’t cut it.
When you are cleaning up sharp glass pieces it is so important to use thick gloves and be very careful. Then it is important to dispose of the glass in something thick so it can’t cause any damage. Your empty feed bags make a great option for this situation.
There may be other random things you need a heavy-duty trash bag for, like rusty or greasy machinery. You never know when they might come in handy! Plus, you can’t see through them either.
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We sell our rabbit manure to local customers and on our Etsy shop. It makes wonderful garden manure and is nicknamed “gardener’s gold.” When we are scooping our rabbit manure to sell it, we place it directly in our old feed bags.
The feed bags are strong enough and mask any sort of odor quite well. Then we either zip-tie or staple the top shut. It makes selling rabbit manure easy for us and easy for our customers when they are spreading it in their gardens!
You could store all sorts of different compost or manure in old feed bags like these. This is another extremely common way that we reuse feed bags on the homestead.
Related Post: The 6 Best Ways To Advertise And Sell Meat Rabbits To Your Community
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Collecting Grass Clippings
We also love to collect and store our grass clippings in these feed bags. It keeps them dry and can hold so much easier!
Our grass clippings are used all over the homestead from the chicken egg boxes to rabbit nesting boxes to garden mulch or soaking up wet ground. It is so convenient to have a bag full of them that stays fresh and dry.
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Layering Items In The Deep Freezer
We have a few deep freezers and one way to keep them organized is by using our feed bags to provide layers. For example, we first put all our rabbit meat down, then a feed bag flat on top, then bags of veggies, then another feed bag flat on top, etc.
We also stored apples in our medium-deep freezer this year. We just placed whole apples inside, straight from our apple trees. But, instead of just dumping them in and causing a huge mess, we layered them with the feed bags.
That way none of our freezer items stick together and we can easily see how much we have left in each layer.
I hope these ideas were creative and unique for you! I’m sure next year I’ll have another blog post with 6 more ways we are using them because we always grab them at the most time for projects!
So, keep your feed bags and always be on the lookout for how you can reuse or recycle them! Let me know in the comments below, how do you reuse feed bags?
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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