Couple Questions For the Kennel Guru's

[Bradh]

I am about to begin building a tin building and I am considering building above ground kennels off one side having the box's inside the building. I plan to use treated 2/4's spaced 3/4 an inch apart for flooring and galvanised hog gates 4 foot high by 8 foot long as the fencing each pen will be 4ft wide by 8 ft long. My question is how high off the ground do you generally make your runs? What do you use for roofing is it better to cover the whole roof with tin or just half and cover the rest with hog gates? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated I am pretty new to the above ground kennels and I wanna make sure I do it right the first time. If anyone has a kennel similar to what I'm planning on building and would like to share a few photo's of how you did your box's and run would be great. Thanks in advance.

[hookset]

I'm far from a kennel guru, but two suggestions that I've learned or have benn given to me. Most people will tell you not to use treated 2X4's for the flooring. Supposedly, dogs absorb the chemicals through their feet or ingest it by chewing on the wood. The chemicals are supposed to cause cancer in dogs. Don't know, just what I've been told, so I used untreated 2X4's and treated them with lindseed oil.

Also, 3/4" spacing is not enough. Using 1" spacing will make cleaning your waste out much, much easier.

Just my suggestions.

[mybeagles]

I've built several, but I make improvements every time so wouldn't call myself a guru.

Deck boards work better than 2X4's, and as stated 1" is better. Actually if you put a 2X4 sideways as a spacer thats about right. Otherwise nothing will fall through. The last two I made I considered the synthetic deck boards, but decided they were too expensive. Deck boards work very good at 1/3 cost. Dogs will lay outside their box on the deck boards. With wire or 2X4 they dont like to stay on them.

2 foot is plenty of space under the runs. Any higher and dogs wont kennel themselves.

I prefer a sand/lime mix underneath. Kills odor and absorbs urine well.....

I started out with 8' runs, the next set were 6', and the last set was 4'. At 8 foot its hard to clean in back, dogs drag the bowls to the back. If you end up with a fool/kennel shy dog and they move to the back you cant grab them. If your going to go 8' I would add an additional top door for the above reasons.

I like complete plywood roof. Provides shade and also makes the entire kennel more sturdy.

Vinyl coated wire is only way to go. 1" X 1" is best, 1" X 2" works but 2" X 2" or bigger and the beagles will get their mouth through and chew.

Mybeagles

[Bradh]

Thanks guys keep it coming.

[PrideHillKennel]

My thoughts and errors.
My current kennel is a free standing kennel with the boxes attached off the back, but it is a raised kennel. I built on the natural grade and now wish I would have dug out some so that the spacing under the kennel would be the same. My high end is 2.5' and the low end is 8" off the ground. I would do 18" to 24". That gives enough room for clean out access. For my kennel I used rough cut oak lumber 3.5" x 1"laid flat , and used 1" spacing between boards. It is way better than pine 2x4. My kennel runs are 4' X 8' x 6' tall, and I ran my flooring full length front to back. It seams to work great. Durring the summer monthes manure dries quickly and falls right through. Durring the winter monthes it seams to freeze to the boards and has to be scraped. I left a 1" gap between the floor and the wire sides and deviders. Hopefully everything was built that it can be replaced if rotted out or wire rust out or gets chewed through. New floor lumber can be slid in from the front and all screws were placed so that I can access them. For wire I used 1" wide X 2" Tall. It came in a 36" height. Same wire is used on the out side and all deviders. My wire is not coated. I wish it was!!! Mine has a sloped roof with a 3' over hang over the front where the doors are. That way I can stand in the dry while feeding and the water is not dripping down or on my back and neck. I wish it was just a little longer. I also built my own doors out of the same lumber i used for the flooring. They are 20"x 5' if I remember right. My main thing I would do different is the space under the kennel. So far I love it and the dogs seam to do well in it. I had to start trimming toe nails having them up off the ground. Brock

[Bradh]

I just found a guy who had 8 foot by 24 foot long of the dura flex rubber flooring with the 1 inch by 1 inch squares just curious if any of you have had any problems with this kind of floor. Also have any of you tried using a hard plastic dogs boxs on the inside of your building I found a company that will make them up with a metal frame decently priced I'm just thinking long term the hard plastic would have to be easier to keep clean and sanitized.

[redbayou]

Here's a link to a thread from coondawgs.com where I learned how to build my kennel. I've used it for over 2 yrs now with coonhounds and now beagles and I kid you not I've had to scrape off MAYBE 10 turds, lol. Everything falls thru. The beagles take a couple days to get used to the floor but its by far the best thing I've ever used. Gonna build a couple more.
http://coondawgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=75840