UKC Forums (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/index.php)
- UKC Coonhounds (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=4)
-- using barrels for dens .... (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?threadid=390137)

using barrels for dens ....

Got out checking the condition of the old den trees on our land in the bottoms, a while back. After the huricane and icestorm came through 2 years ago, found I had lost them. So have decided to see if y'all have any ideas on making some new ones. I have about 10 barrels about 30 gal. in size, that I was thinking about using. I had read a thread on here a while back, but couldn't find it.
Guess what I need is where to put the entrance hole on it . Which would be better, to fix it sideways like a dog house or verticle with hole on side ? Otherwise would want it where the coon could enter and exit easy, not like a trap which would defeat my purpose. Any ideas ?
Thanks,
Glenn Wells

__________________
D. Glenn Wells, Jr.
UKC MOH

Go to a log deck and pay the trimmer to cut you off some hollow sections of three foot butts and help you load them up. When you get home, tack some treated plywood top and bottom and chop/drill a hole you can stick both fists through. Then find some healthy trees and pitch a little line with like a 1 ounce sinker though the first crotch if it's 20 feet off the ground (higher even better) and tie the string to a nylon rope and hoist the whole thing. Walk around the tree and flick the rope to pull the fake hollow tight against the tree. Step up on something and nail right through the rope high enough that a dog does't think it's a vine and cut it off. It's no better than a barrel but your woods won't look like a trailer park.

Another thing you can do while you are messing around in the woods , if a permanent water supply is a long ways off , is to find some scattered double trunk saplings or small trees and cut off the crookedest fork level right at the joint. Then apply some of the stuff that is supposed to rot regular stumps in your yard so you don't need to hire a stump grinder, right in the middle of the flat spot. Directly, it will rot( probly whether you use the stuff or not) and will form what the environmentalists call a tree fountain but we call a handy comode. None the less rain runs down the good trunk and settles in the gone branch which encourages more rot. But it is amaising how long that little bit of water will linger when everthing else is bone dry. In the wost case you can loose a foot or two of the butt cut due to rot (way down the road) or you can leave the double trunk as it is and basicly have two snags way down the road. LOL

read this thread http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthrea...coon+dens+boxes

__________________
Johnny Williams

Cut the hole about 4 by 6 inches and fold the lip down on the outside, also put holes in the bottom and hardware cloth on the inside and outside below the hole. It should work fine.

__________________
Bill Harper
Washington, NC
252-944-5592