This first photo is my old dog box's. There was a time I kept them painted and the door's on. Now they are more like an old car setting in a field. They've gone from junk to a fond memory.
These fit in the back of that fond memory they are sitting in front of. the small boxes on the top are actally vent's thru the top to help control heat build up in the box's. The round hole's on the door's had expanded metal origionally but that's not good. Dog's get toe nails hung up in them pretty bad and that causes awful problem's. These I replaced with 1/2" hardware cloth. Another two dog set I made I made larger air hole's on the side and covered the top with old 24" wide rubber belting. If I wanted to, I could stand a dog on top and the rubber gave it good footing. Glued down with drip edge under it, they also became very water proof on top. They were alway's painted white to reflect the sun which helped keep them cooler inside.
When ever I was somewhere I could get them out, I did. Boxes are not a good place to leave dog's when it's warm out and your not moving. You'll notice on the bumper of that fond memory of a Chevy truck, there's an eye bolt in the bumper. There is one on each corner of the truck, front and back. There were also 18" drop chains I used on my chain gang that snapped on these and I had four dog's hooked up around the truck and out of the boxes without setting up the chain gang. This set of boxes cost me a couple sheet's of plywood and some scrap boards from a construction burn pile.
This next photo is a carry box for pigeon's.
It too is made out of scrap from a construction burn pile. The top is nothing more than an old tire inner tube. That is two pieces that ran full length and overlapped good in the middle. Were I to make new one's today, I'd use plywood on the top and bottom and make the side's and end's out of 1/2" hardware cloth. That would be cooler than what I did with this box and pigeon's sweat badly when they get warm. I had another set of pigoen boxes that attached to the tounge of the horse trailer and carried a lot of pigeons. The tounge was extended so I could let down the tail gate with the trailer hooked up without hitting the trailer jack. I also had a 5 gal plastic planting bucket to carry bird's out to plant. It had the snap on lid and the lid was covered with innertube same as the box's. Holes were bored in the side's with a hole saw. I'm not sure lumber cost's today but I imagine the stuff I put in here could be had for well under $200, probally under $100.
Next picture you probally seen everywhere. It's a backing silouette (sp). Mine didn't have stake's in the ground but rather was held up with a support stick so I could just knock it over as I went by.
Again, it's just a piece of scrap sheeting off a construction burn pile.
A thing that some don't seem to realize is that training a dog is about communition, not stuff. Stuff make's the job easier for us but the dog can be trained without it. You really don't need to keep a bird pen if you have access to wild bird's. But you also can't control wild bird's. And quite often they are not where we expect them. So we use pigeon's or pen raised bird's. Pen raised bird's can be notririuosly bad flyer's so flight pen's condition birds to fly. Room for flight pens might be a problem and the cost of one might be another. When I used quail, which wasn't often, I kept them in a johnny house.
I put them in a small pasture behind the house and fenced them off with woven wire. I left the wire a couple inch's off the ground and birds went under the wire but dog's learned they couldn't get in and torment the birds. The top has a ledge around it that the birds sit on and food and water is on the floor. They had to go down for food and water and fly back up to see out. They seldom sat around on the floor so flew quite a bit in the johnny house. That top door is where I turned them loose from. Turn only one sex loose at a time so they will call each other back. Turn the male's loose and put a cage of females on the top, they'll call back the males. At the back is a re-entry shute. it's nothing fancy, just a piece of hardware cloth rolled into a tube and fastened at an upward angle. The trick is to keep the opening inside the house above the birds head so they don't go back out the way they came it. That box attached to the side is the feed bin and I put a pan of water inside. In retrospect (big word!) I would hook up a water bottle to the outside such as on a bird cage in the house. With this set up you never have to touch the bird's.
Time for breakfast. I've a few more thing's if you'd like to see them.
