Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Pallet Dog House

Our farm is expanding rapidly. Lately, every few days a new baby (or babies) is born. We are moving animals around, erecting temporary pens and getting everyone adjusted to the newbies. Shepherd, our Anatolian Shepherd Dog, is still basically a giant pup full of raging hormones so he has been sorta banned. Annie, with her still helpless pups, swears she will tear his head off if he comes near her brood. The chickens are still a temptation far to great to oversee. The goat kids are too bouncy not to play with, so he is getting some alone time.
I put up a welded panel fence across the chicken yard to section a large piece of it off for him. He is situated in between the chicken coop and the goat pen. He's kind of a baby when it comes to the rain, so he needed a roof over his head. We are always striving to recycle or upcycle whenever we can, and this proved to be the perfect project to utilize some materials that we had collected. We had several pallets, salvaged metal sheets and some insulation left over from another project. Alas, the Pallet Dog House was born! We (mostly Mike) managed to build a very sturdy, large enough and weatherproof enough dog house for absolutely nothing!
He took 5 pallets that were roughly the same size and in good condition, stuck insulation in between the slats, nailed them together, and screwed corrugated metal on for the roof and siding. On the inside he screwed some leftover plywood to keep Shepherd from tearing out the insulation. It's pretty cozy in there! Mike, Jadon and the 150 pound dog could all get in there!
He used some leftover end pieces of treated 4x4 posts to lift it off the ground. It's sitting on an incline in order to shed water off the roof towards the back of the house.
Throw in some straw and WOW, what an awesome crib for the Shepherd dog! This was relatively easy to construct so I'm thinking we will make more of these, only making them 2 or 3 pallets wide for a couple goats to hang out in.












Blessings to all!
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10 NIV)
Carie