Whelping room

HI there

May be someone can give me some pointers. I'm finally after 15 years in the breeding game, in a position to have a propper whelping room.
The idea is to build it 'en-suite' to my main bedroom, as not to have to go outside the house at night, or disrupt my family life.

I'll build a 'double' room. As to be able to accommodate 2 bitches similtaniously if needs be, but was thinking the 1 of the 2 rooms should maby double up as a grooming room. Or would it be better to have the 'grooming' portion outside rather? This will be with a build in grooming table, bath with shower head, and power supply point for the dryer.

Should the Whelping 'boxes' be build in by concrete, or rather a loose standing loose one?

I plan to make racks all around in the 2 rooms for equipment and supplies. There will be CCTV cameras in both rooms, so I can 'watch' from my PC in my office, or at night from my bed on our television (How cool will this be!!!).
The door between the 2 rooms will be a double door (upper and lower) so I'll just need to open the top section to look in to check where pups and mum are before I open the door. The door towards my bedroom will be the same.

Also though to tile the whole area so I can just flush it out with water and disinfectant, and it will have drains at the bottom, and it will be build at a slope towards the doors as well!

Each of the 2 rooms wil have an outside door as well going into a small enclosure for puppies to do there 'potty' outside once they are bigger.

Once they are about 3 or 4 weeks old, they'll be moved to the puppy enclusure. A rather big 6x5m enclosure with a propper rock-build house with a grass roof (they way they do lodges in SA).

Anybody did this before? Any errors to watch out for? Suggestions to ad?

hi

id have a seperate grooming area so you can groom other dogs while you have a bitch in the whelping room

also i dont quite understand the concrete whelping boxes, do u mean the boxx itself will be made of concrete?

tiles are easy to clean however they still can look pretty grubby

you can buy exposy ressin, this would be what i would use inside the whelping box if it were made of concrete, its what hospitals use on there floors and toilet floors etc

i have my stable floors resined and its wonderful it wipes clean with a mop just like a tiled or lino floor but is much more hard wearing- bare in mind tiles will crack under pressure over if they are not put dowm perfectly straight onto a perfect flat surface, also wet tiles are slippy the resin isnt.

any drain you have needs some kind of hair catcher over or under it so you dont get blocked!

anyway these are just my thoughts!

cheri

Hi Cheri

Thanx for the reply. I'll post pictures when my room is finished. We're putting up some dog runs at the same time (so nice to finaly have the space and means to do this -a lifelong dream).

Anycase, yes, I was thinking of 'building in' the puppy/whelping box, with a low wall (app 20-30cm) 'around' and in that to incert puppy rails (permanently). Just not sure if it should be right around, or with a door? Considering the mom can easily step over anycase? But I was thinking if the pups start walking it would be better to have a door ( a gap in the small wall), to easily get in and out to go potty? They will be moved out at around 3-4 weeks to the bigger puppy pen anycase?
But yeas, I was thinking to do it in concrete, and then tile the entire area. My husband does tiling himself so he should be able to do a great job. It will be terracotta tiles, as we've got lots over from when we renovated the house. Both the box, the room floor and the walls of the room (halfway up) will be tiled.
What is the ideal height for puppy rails though? And the distance from the 'box' or wall?

I'm not sure what expossy resin is? What is it normally used for? I'm in SA remember, so I'll probably need to look for something similar then?

Originally I thought to put a drain in for easy cleaning, but my husband also pointed out that it would be a challence to keep dog hair out. Instead we'll build the whole room with a drop to the one corner (where the outside door will be) and directly outside we'll put a gutter to force the water into the main drain. So still I can just flush the whole room. (In which case it make sense to build the whelping box itself with a small gap).

I wanted to do the grooming sector outside, but once again the water will be a problem, as the fall of the yard is toward the house, and it would mean that all the water will form a 'pool' right outside my bedroom window! I THINK NOT!

The solution is that the grooming room will be in one of the rooms. I doubt if I will have two litters similtaniously on a regular basis. Mostly (I think) there would be about 2-3 weeks between, (if it happen on occasion) and that gives me time to move the older litter outside. But still, if it does happen I have 2 rooms. But I will never be showing whilst having a litter, so no grooming will ever be neccesary during puppy time (atleast 3 weeks I would imagine). Therefore I doubt it will ever clash, but if it comes to that, I have the second room!

With regards to the grooming area we've made the following 'plan'. In the one corner will be the puppy 'box', and on the other wall, we'll build a Saint bath, with 1 or 2 steps up. The 'back end' will thus be open, but it will have sides (not sure what height though?), and it will not be in a corner but rather in the centre of the wall in order for me to move around the dog. If the dog is against a wall, you cannot reach the other side (so basically the head of the dog will face the wall with me being able to move around 3 sides -if you understand what I mean). Obviously an extendable shower head fitted agains the wall. The bath will have a drain, but it will go directly to the big outside drainthrough the wall, but we'll fit a 'sif' in the plug hole as well.
The dog can be bathed, and partly dried. THen I remove the dog, and put the 'table' down. This will be a flat survace that 'fits' over the bath tub (it will be secured against the wall with hinges, and be 'dropped' when needed - and probably be made out of wood or metal covered with rubber). Since it's over the tub, the height will be ideal (we'll work it out to be the correct hight. and ofcourse there will be holes in the 'bath' sided to fit the grooming table poles -to secure dog in position. And here I can properly blow and groom the dog to my hearts contend.

Ofcourse there will be a wall plug /power supply close by, and some racks, and the blower will be on the rack -ready for use.

I was thinking to even fit a 'shower rail' around the bath, to hang shower curtains to contain water to the inside of the tub as far as possible? Not sure if this will help though?

What do you think?

And please advise with regards to the puppy rails measurements, and what a 'good' hight would be for the sides of the bathtub?

we have a room of of our kitchen that has tiles half way up the wall and a non skid lino on the floor, we do not use a whelping box as such but instead partion of half the room when the pups are up and mobile , up till then the are seperated from mum and put in a high top crate that she can see and sleep beside.Until that time mum will just lay down on the made up bed and wait for us to bring out the puppies gives us plenty of room to lay down with her and the pups.