This weekend I've got to establish winter quarters for dogs. Jake needs his house totally cleaned out and refreshed with new cedar chips and hay, his dog bed taken out and solarized, the cover washed, etc. Ben needs a hay house built for him for his winter sleeping needs.
Jake's house is built out of pallets and is attached to the back of my hoop coop. The pallets are stuffed with hay for insulation, even those above his head. The floor pallets were lined with plastic underneath and also stuffed with hay, then a 3/4 in. plywood laid over those. On top of that is his cedar chip layer, then more hay and then his memory foam dogbed. He's getting old, so he appreciates his creature comforts in the winter months. His house has a large overhung porch and a windbreaker wall to protect his entrance and the pop door entrance also...the chickens and the dog share the same porch. He also has an old towel stapled across his doorway to keep out the worst drafts.
Mid build...the back door, one I use to clean out and refresh his house.
Insulated roof...
The porch he shares with the chickens....the wall on the right of the pic was then built in to block wind from blowing into their respective doors.
His cozy winter digs....I left him a small window on that windbreak wall so he could scent any danger from that side easily.
In the summer months I close his doghouse door so the chickens won't get the bright idea of laying in there. He never uses his dog house until winter anyway.
Ben, being a LGD breed mix, doesn't like to use a dog house unless the temps drop down in the teens and below zero. He likes a good visual field and a quick escape from his bed. I started out with attaching a regular doghouse to Jake's porch but Ben rarely used it, so discarded that idea.
Then I moved to building a hay hut inside the spare chicken pen and that was a success for him...Jake sleeps with him there unless the temps get really low, then he heads to his well insulated doghouse and his memory foam bed. They both like to lounge in there on winter days, as the hay is soft and the pen breaks the wind but they can still see, hear and smell everything.
Ben's bed within a house formed by hay bales stacked inside the spare pen/coop...
Jake snoozing in the doorway of the "dog lounge" area in front of Ben's hay house...
It's a sweet life for a couple of farm dogs. They have a heated bucket waterer for winter as well, so nicely warmed drinking on the coldest of days.
