Siberians of the Heartland Home

     Siberians of the Heartland was formerly known as The Puppy Ranch.  It was designed and built by my loving husband. Isn't he talented!  It has a 60' x 12' building for the adults and a Nursery that is 3o' x 12' for the pregnant and nursing moms and all the puppies.  It is fully insulated with Air-conditioning and Heating.  The floor is completely cemented inside and out.  The inside pens are all on one side and are 5' by 4'.  Each pen has a doggy door for 24 hour access to the outdoors.  The outdoor pens are 5' by 10' so when the dogs are penned up they still have lots of room to play and move around.  All of the cement floors are sloped towards a drain so that when they are washed there is never setting water.  Everything drains toward 8 individual drains that lead to a septic tank to eliminate smells and waste.

Siberians of the Heartland Kennel System

-         Building:  The building for the adults is a 12 x 60 foot insulated shed, with a single pitch roof.   The inside consists of a walk way on the high side (8 feet tall) and 12 4x5 pens on the low side (7 feet).

                            The building for the puppies, pregnant or nursing moms is a 12' x 30' insulated shed, with a single pitch roof.  The inside consists of a walk way on the high side (8 feet tall) and  4'x5' pens on the low side (7 feet ).  This building also has nursery camera's so I have a 24 hour watch over the pregnant moms and the puppies.

-         Inside Pens:  On the side with the pens; we used ½ inch think plastic board for the dividers between pens.  The walls, we used 3/8 inch think plastic board.  This makes for very easy cleaning and no treatment is necessary like wood. For the kennel doors we used 5 feet wide by 6 feet high swing doors.  They are made of steel.  We bought these from Menards.  They are also used for the outside doors.

-         Outside Pens:  I  have 10 x 5 foot pens.  The dividing panels are 10 feet long and 6 feet high heavy duty galvanized panels.  I bought these from Runnings Farm and Fleet store.  The doors are the same as the inside doors.  Doors are 5 feet long and 6 feet high.  The entire gate opens up.  I bought these from Manards.

-         Floors for Puppies:   We used drop through floors inside and out for all the pens the puppies go in.  The outdoor flooring are  interlocking 2'x4' panels are a composite plastic and have about ¾ square openings, and were purchased through Farm Tech Supply Company, www.farmtek.com.  The indoor flooring we use the tenderfoot  hog panel drop thru flooring.  This comes in 4'x8' sheets.  It is incredibly heavy.  Obviously we cut them down to 4'x5' to fit into the inside pens.

-     Whelping box:  The whelping boxes are made of metal.  We have a 1 foot metal  sheet surrounding the box on two sides.  The side of the door and the side of the feeder.  This sheet is raised 6inches from the bottom of the box.  For the flooring of the box we have a 4x4 tenderfoot hog  flooring for when the puppies are 4 weeks old and older.  For during delivery we have 2 2'x4' sheets of heated hog pad.  We got this also from www.farmtek.com , however since writing this I have went and checked to see if the heating pad is still available and I do see there is one there, but not sure it is the same as what I have.  Mine is like a fiberglass and is a solid 2'x4'.  The new sizes are not the same. 

-         Septic Tank:  We have all the drains connected to a septic tank.          

-          Cement floors:  I have four drains inside and four drains outside.  I also have two water hydrants inside and two outside.  The floors are all sloped toward the drains. The drains are on the opposite side of the pens.

  X – Water Hydrant

        - Drains to the septic tank.

The arrows are pointing the direction the floors are slopped, the direcion the water drains.

Outside

                 Inside             

This Kennel was our original set up.  Since then we moved to Chamberlain and rebuilt kennels.  I left this picture here because you can see the building without the pens up.

The walls on one side of the building are approximately 8 feet high and on the side with pens they are 7 feet high.

  The cement floor extends 5 feet out from the 10 foot long pens for a walk way and easier cleaning.  As you can see the drains our located here.  We also added a 3 inch lip around the entire cement area to keep waste from falling off the side.  The building has also been built on a 2 inch lip to keep water from leaking inside.

These are the puppy pens.  A drop-through floor is provided so the urine and waste falls through.  This helps keep the puppies clean and less likely to get sick.

The inside pens have self-feeders so the dogs never are without food.  The feeders have dividers inside them.  Each side holds 40 lbs (80 lbs per Feeder) of food so there can be two different brands inside.  We have them set up so there is one feeder for every two pens.  In the picture above you can see one side of the feeder.  The other side goes through to the next pen as you can see from the picture below.

Dog Door pictures coming soon!

The Dog Doors we have made ourselves.  We use 3/4 inch think plastic board.  They are 16inches wide x 21inches high on the flat part.  Then there is a 2 inch lip slightly bent out for easy nose access for the dogs to open from the outside.  They push open from the inside.  We then use tin to cover the tops and the lips so the dogs don't chew them up.  They are very heavy and very durable.  We got this idea from www.revivalanimal.com who sell "NEXT DOOR" dog doors.  These doors work good also, but ours are more heavy duty.  We still order our hinges from www.revivalanimal.com. 

  These are the individual pens I use when preparing a puppy for shipping.  I usually take a puppy away from its littermates days before shipping so the puppy gets use to being alone before the flight.  As you can see they also have drop-through floors.

These 6 kennels are part of the new nursery.  They are same size as the previous pens, but the flooring is one solid metal frame with drop through flooring. 

These are the portable flooring frames.  This is before the 2'x4' drop thru flooring panels were on.  We use these portable flooring to move in an out of pens when puppies I buy or keep get older.  They hit a stage where they will go potty then wrestle and play in it.  This helps them to stay clean.  But is only temporary.  The frames are 4'x10' and do not fill up the entire kennel.

The inside floor is actual tenderfoot hog mat.  The holes are smaller so we are able to take puppies out of the whelping boxes earlier without feet falling through.  This is working out excellent.  By putting them on this floor earlier there is less mess for the mommies to clean up, keeping mom and puppies healthier.  However as you can see in these pictures still hadn't moved the whelping boxes in.  Nor did we have the feeders done yet.

Whelping box pictures coming soon

These are the whelping boxes.  As you can see we have the heated mats for delivery of the puppies up to about the age of 4 weeks or until the mommies have trouble keeping up with keeping puppies clean.  Then we remove the mats and have the tenderfoot hog flooring.

I think this is about all the information I can think of.  If you have any other questions regarding my kennel system please feel free to contact me at:  mkwessel@hotmail.com