The American Beagler Forum

I have had a great way to clean up after my dogs for years and that is pay my kids to water, feed and clean poop up. I can see that this is not going to work for ever. I have seen this thing that acts like a septic tank, you add stuff to it every so often and it breaks down to poop. This may sound silly and it is a little embarrasing after 20 years of having dogs but...........What do you do with the dogs mess? Has anyone used this machine or mini septic system? I am wanting to hear what everyone is doing so that i can improve the sanition of my kennel. Dont get me wrong we clean our kennel daily but just wanting to improve my system im using. Thanks-Mac

i have always just used a garbage can with a bag in it. when it is warm out the flies suck but i just spray the can with bug spray and clean it out regularly. i have always wanted to try out the little dog septics but you have to make sure the capacity of the thing is big enough for your amount of dogs. and also look into how often you have to buy the powder to put into it.

later, dave

I have 6 runs in my kennel, housing 9 dogs. The runs are cleaned daily, usually the first thing in the mornings. The poop is then spread in a sunny spot in the starter pen where it drys quickly with very little odor. With wet or damp weather conditions, odors are sometimes noticeable, but easily controled with powdered lime. Lime being no danger to the rabbit population and great for the soil.

I clean mine everyday then haul it to my pasture on my 4-wheeler and scatter it never smell it and helps the hay when i lived in town i buried 2 plastic barrels with holes in the barrels i put it in the barrels along with 2 septic tablets worked fine for about 7 years

A garbage can and some drainage tile and your in business !

I have thought of this often myself,I have three above ground kennels that house 5 dogs and I have only about .38 of an ac,so what I was thinking was to put a bucket with drain holes in the ground along with some of that powder that you can get,like rid-x just to have a way to get rid of the stuff.

I have a kennel with 16 runs, I have it piped into a septic system, it is an agriculture septic, for farm use. It works awesome no smell and it has a leech bed also. I love the way it works.

Yea thats what i used rid-x i used 30 gal barrels but a friend of mine used 5 gal buckets it worked as well just didnt last as long i dug a hole put gravel in the bottom then drilled holes in the bottom and about a foot and half up the sides set my barrel in the hole flush with the ground put a lid on it worked great also sprinkle lime in the barrel and around it from time to time Also know a guy that tapped into the city sewer from his house sewer line that worked to

I buried a 50 gallon drum. Cut some holes in it , but made it where it would hold about 5 or 6 inches of water in the bottom. I put gravel under andaround the barrel so the water and waste could escape. I also made a french drain for a worst case senario just in case we got a lot of rain. So far it works great. No odor. You can check a few pics out on my website.

thanks guys for the help.if anyone is doing something else please let me know.

Call your local cement company and if they sell septic tanks you can sometimes get an actual septic tank that has a small crack in it for cheap. They won't get approved by the health department for human use but they work great for dog kennels. I just installed mine this last week after doing the 55 gallon drum septic system that lasted less than a year for 4-6 dogs. I installed the tank and a small dry well for the leech bed...........my buddy has had one for years with no problems and he keeps anywhere from 6-12 dogs on his. The other benefit is if you do run into any problems you can still get it pumped out if need be. I went with a 1000 gallon tank but that's only because the price was right (only $200) and I have access to the equipment to put it in. You would want something a lot smaller like say a 300 gallon tank.

do you run lines out of it and if so how long and how many?

I ran 2 out but you can get away with just 1 as long as your leech bed, dry well, etc is big enough to take whatever amount of water you put to it. My soil is fairly light so it drains well anyway but I went with basically an 8'x4'x5' dry well so I had plenty of room for the liquids. I just deleted the website I had stored but do a search for "kennel septic system" and you'll get lots of good information to look through. You'll get some advertisement type ads too but just weed through those and look for the ones with information on how to set one up using anything from a trash can and drain tile to a composter..........it'll give you lots of good ideas.

i went to a mans house and bought a pup, he had tin under his runs up high in the front and slanted down towards the back, on the low end he took a 4 inch PVC pipe cut a inch or so slot all the way down it, mounted it over the tin so the waste would go into pipe, on top he had 1 inch PVC plumbed across with holes driled in that he turned the water on threw that daily and it washed all waste down the tin into the pipe and into a home made septic tank.. worked slick! then for fresh water he had 1 inch pvc plumbed to each watter bucket he turned on a vavle and watered all dogs at once, he said he had less then 500.00 in the hole kennel, nice way to be clean on the cheap! hope this makes since.

these sound great