Need some ideas!

I'm hoping some of yall can give me some ideas on how to accomplish what I have pictured in my mind. I have a chain link dog pen that is 6×10×10. I would like to take these 4 sides apart an stretch them out to make one 40' front side. I will use 16' cattle panels on the ends. The back side will be tin and wood. So after I end up with the 40'×16' rectangle I would like to divide the space to make five 8'×16' pens. Now what im having trouble with is figuring out how to put doors in the chain link panels. I will only need four doors since one panel already has a door. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I repurposed a similar pen. Big box stores carry all the parts you need to build with chain link. I got mine at Lowe's.
You can buy premade doors, bars to go through the ends of the chain link and poles that attach to the top and bottom bars.

The only thing to be careful of is predators. the chain link doors rounded corners leave gaps that need to be covered. Also, mink and weasels can go through a chain link opening.

Thanks I'll check out Lowes.

I use a 1"× 2" welded wire 3' tall on the inside. Use it on the dog pen and on my cattle panel hoop coop.

This is just a warning. My family has been raising chickens around here since the 1870s. Never had a mink before. All my buildings were predator proof - or so I thought. In 6 nights mink killed over $2,000 worth of my chickens and it didn't stop till I closed off every opening over 1/2".

Thanks for the warning.

WycChickenguy said:

I'm hoping some of yall can give me some ideas on how to accomplish what I have pictured in my mind. I have a chain link dog pen that is 6×10×10. I would like to take these 4 sides apart an stretch them out to make one 40' front side. I will use 16' cattle panels on the ends. The back side will be tin and wood. So after I end up with the 40'×16' rectangle I would like to divide the space to make five 8'×16' pens. Now what im having trouble with is figuring out how to put doors in the chain link panels. I will only need four doors since one panel already has a door. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

might try this.

make each of your pens, 11'X 16'
on the side, start with a 3' gate, then use kennel panel, place a 3' gate, then another panel, 3'gate, panel, gate, panel, gate.

real quick sketch

Not exactly sure how you plan to use those pens, but a few things that might help you with your planning. If you use those gates, which I think is the way to go, you may wind up with something other than 40’. I like what Bert did with that sketch but that gives you 55’ to work with.

If you consider making your pens 8’ x 11’ with that method, don’t plan on using cattle panels cut in half. There is a vertical exactly in the middle of that panel so if you cut it, some pieces will be under 8’, some over. I use cattle panels to cage my tomatoes and cut them in half to make them easier to handle by myself. You do not get 8’ sections when you cut them.

I’m not sure why you want to use cattle panels. Maybe you have some on hand. Anyway that’s none of my business. But the cattle panels will not keep chickens in or predators out unless you add another layer of wire. Hog rings are a good way to attach that other wire and to tie cattle panels together when you overlap them, like you might do to get the height you want. I would not build those pens unless I could walk in them. I don’t know if you are covering them or not. Cattle panels are 52” high and I’m not sure how high your dog panels will be on the front, probably 6’ but I hate to assume. The vertical dimensions are not adding up. Would you be better off using something else, such as 2”x4” welded wire, so you can adjust the 16’ depth if you wish and better match the vertical height? You could bend the excess wire out horizontal at the bottom and make an apron to deter digging predators.

If you are housing poultry your interior wire doesn’t have to be predator proof, inexpensive chicken wire will work. Some time in the future you might find it beneficial to have a door in between the interior pens so chickens can get back and forth. It’s not that hard to put a door you can walk through in that, but I used this method to put a pop door in a fence. Cut out your hole and sandwich 2x4’s or some planks around that, covering the sharp wire edges. That gives you something solid to attach a door to.



I don’t know if any of this helps or not, but good luck on your project.

Ridgerunner said:

Not exactly sure how you plan to use those pens, but a few things that might help you with your planning. If you use those gates, which I think is the way to go, you may wind up with something other than 40’. I like what Bert did with that sketch but that gives you 55’ to work with.

If you consider making your pens 8’ x 11’ with that method, don’t plan on using cattle panels cut in half. There is a vertical exactly in the middle of that panel so if you cut it, some pieces will be under 8’, some over. I use cattle panels to cage my tomatoes and cut them in half to make them easier to handle by myself. You do not get 8’ sections when you cut them.

I’m not sure why you want to use cattle panels. Maybe you have some on hand. Anyway that’s none of my business. But the cattle panels will not keep chickens in or predators out unless you add another layer of wire. Hog rings are a good way to attach that other wire and to tie cattle panels together when you overlap them, like you might do to get the height you want. I would not build those pens unless I could walk in them. I don’t know if you are covering them or not. Cattle panels are 52” high and I’m not sure how high your dog panels will be on the front, probably 6’ but I hate to assume. The vertical dimensions are not adding up. Would you be better off using something else, such as 2”x4” welded wire, so you can adjust the 16’ depth if you wish and better match the vertical height? You could bend the excess wire out horizontal at the bottom and make an apron to deter digging predators.

If you are housing poultry your interior wire doesn’t have to be predator proof, inexpensive chicken wire will work. Some time in the future you might find it beneficial to have a door in between the interior pens so chickens can get back and forth. It’s not that hard to put a door you can walk through in that, but I used this method to put a pop door in a fence. Cut out your hole and sandwich 2x4’s or some planks around that, covering the sharp wire edges. That gives you something solid to attach a door to.



I don’t know if any of this helps or not, but good luck on your project.

Click to expand...

I use cattle panels to build the outer fences, it's so dang easy to work with. then stretch chicken wire and use the hog rings to hold it up. I like the idea of the pop door, between runs.

Another thought. Why not put the doors in the tin and wood side?