Hotel guests, tags hidden for the guests’ privacy. All photos Pavel Kuliuk.
The hotel business for animals can improve its efficiency if it is more closely connected with agriculture.
Here is an inside look at how to do this.
War makes people’s lives more restless. Part of this restlessness is more frequent separation from their pets. In Kramatorsk, ten miles from the fighting with the Russians, pet hotel services are booming. Soldiers going to war or officials going to rest far from the combat actions, all these people want to entrust their pets to reliable hands. There are no vacancies in the city’s pet hotels! A pet hotel is a good idea for a start-up in the conditions of war or other extraordinary events in the history of any country.
The main contingent of guests are dogs. The food for these dogs is of high quality. The food is mainly of German origin. However, the accompanying materials for the animals’ accommodation are produced by the hotel’s employees on several small plots of land. And this production process is closely related to agriculture. And this may be of interest to farmers. This is an inside look at one of the animal hotels.
Animal toilet products
The dogs at the hotel are walked five times a day. But at night, some dogs need toilet litter. Cats and some other pets also need it 24/7. Ukrainian farmers have established production of such a substance from corn waste. The average price of this filler is US$0.55 for 2.2 pounds.1 However, the owner of the hotel has come up with his own know-how to reduce expenses on this budget item. The raw materials for the filler are leaves, grass and flowers that grow on the businessman’s plots of land. All this is turned into toilet filler for animals free. But this takes seven to eight years. After all, nature is the executor.
The manufacturing process is simple. A hole is dug in the ground at least 12 feet deep, 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. Fallen leaves, mown grass, flowers and other vegetation from the land are dumped into this hole. Food waste is also dumped into the hole and access for rain or technical water is organised. For example, a drain for water from a summer shower is made. Water accelerates the process of rotting plants. Usually such a hole is completely filled in one gardening season. Grass is placed in the hole in excess. So that there is a small hill at the top. Subsequently, the plants will begin to rot and this hill will settle down. In a properly filled hole, rotting vegetation lies level with the ground. You can walk on such a hole without the risk of falling down. Rotting plants lie so tightly.
After seven to eight years, the plants rot so well that they turn into dry humus similar to sawdust. The substance has no smell, is dry, pleasant to the touch and has a light color. This substance does not contain parasites, larvae or other insects. This humus is taken out of the hole with a shovel and transported to the sorting place with a garden wheelbarrow. I did it myself in two days.
The photo shows what a filled pit looks like. The photos also show how much raw material is obtained from one pit. Incredible! But such humus is pleasant to take in your hand and not just put in the pot of your pet. The production of this material is free. It also allows you to utilise gardening waste, which in other cases is either burned or removed as garbage for money by utilities. There are 10 such pits on the land plots belonging to the hotel. All of these pits, with the exception of one, are already filled with grass and are in varying degrees of decay. That is, every year you can open one pit and get fresh substance for animal toilets.
Of course, for sale and mass use, this substance must be certified. Perhaps after the war, this will be done. But in combat conditions, such know-how allows businesses to survive without certification.
Toys for dogs
What dog doesn’t like to chew and tear at something? Any dog loves to do it. This habit of dogs is so well known to people that the industry has established the production of special toys for dogs. In Ukraine, the price of these toys starts from US$0.5 and reaches US$100.2 The dog owner decides how much money to spend on a toy for his dog. But if you are the owner of a dog hotel, then toys have a hidden meaning for you. After all, a dog that is not satisfied with a toy starts gnawing floors and walls. And this will damage the building. Usually, such a threat is posed by large and strong dogs: shepherds, St. Bernards, pit bulls, Rottweilers, etc. In order to direct the energy of these strong animals in the right direction, the owner of the hotel came up with his own toy for dogs. This toy was short, thick and freshly cut branches of fruit trees: apple, cherry, pear, mulberry. Dogs love the tasty juice of these trees. Animals like to gnaw on these branches and remove the bark from the branches. By doing this, dogs sharpen their teeth.
Dogs chew about 600 pounds of branches per year. Each branch is 5-10 inches long and 2-3 inches thick. The branches should not be dry, but only freshly cut. There should be no fungus, moss or other damage on the bark of the branches. Also, the branches should not have knots or sharp protrusions. The branches should be straight. That is, the dog should not damage its mouth with a stick.
Each dog in the hotel gets one or two of these branches. When the dog leaves the hotel, the branches become firewood for barbecue. Waste-free production. The source of this branch factory is the garden of the owner of the hotel. There, branches are constantly being trimmed. Unnecessary branches are cut off. These are branches that have little fruit or that take excess energy from the tree. Good for the dogs and the garden. And the hotel is undamaged.
By the way, if the dog does start gnawing the floor or walls, there is another way to prevent this. The place where the dog is gnawing is smeared with a mixture of ground hot pepper and wet bread crumb. The dog feels the bitterness and stops gnawing the property.
Magic grass :)
Many dogs are used to going to the toilet in parks or on lawns. But the hotel does not have any enclosures or walking areas with earthen surfaces. There are only paving slabs or concrete. Therefore, some dogs do not go to the toilet and expect their usual environment. To help the animals feel as though they are in nature, the owner of the hotel grows special grass. This is Carex Morrow.3
This is a wonderful perennial semi-evergreen plant. It is a grassy mound of linear leaves and a shortened branched rhizome. It forms a compact cushion-shaped crown, grows 11-20 inches in height and up to 15 inches of continuous cover in width. It grows quite quickly. It looks lush and impressive.
The grass is grown in the garden. When the stems are at least 11 inches long, the grass is cut and tied into bundles. The bundles of grass are hung under the roof. There the grass dries. Then the bundles of grass are thrown onto the concrete or tiled surface of the dog run. Dogs see and smell this grass. This helps dogs to go to the toilet. This is because the animal begins to perceive the run as a park, lawn or forest. This trick with grass can help many animal owners, and not only the owner of the hotel. After all, very often people change their place of residence and the new house has different conditions than the previous house. Therefore, the dog refuses to go to the toilet, which becomes a topic of discussion on social networks.4
In addition to this problem, grass is used to train animals. But in this case, we are talking about the lawn. In hot weather, dogs on hot asphalt or concrete do not obey commands well. Because the animals’ paws are hot. Therefore, in especially hot weather, the trainer conducts training with dogs in the garden. There, on specially created lawns, dogs understand human commands better. Thus, natural grass provides unexpected help to the trainer.
Containers for watering the garden
Special water storage tanks are very expensive. In Ukraine, the price of such tanks starts from US$110 per tank for one ton of water.5 However, there is a way to organise water storage cheaper. Many liquid substances for industry are supplied in so-called “Eurocubes”. These are square plastic tanks in a metal frame and on a wooden pallet. At the bottom of the tank there is a tap for draining the liquid. At the top of the tank there is a valve for filling the liquid. Such tanks can be transported by stacking one on top of the other.
Very often after delivery of the cargo these containers are thrown away, since the price of these tanks is included in the cost of the goods. If you know enterprises that receive raw materials in such tanks, then you can try to buy these tanks at a low price or get them free! Of course, these tanks need to be washed inside. But if this is done well, then the tank is suitable for storing technical water for watering the garden and fields.
Enterprising businessmen have even organised a special business for selling these tanks.6 Such businessmen emphasise in their ads that “the tanks have already been washed.” Such tanks are sold all over Ukraine. Even among speculator sellers, the price of such tanks is 25 per cent less than the price of new tanks especially made for storing water. But if you buy such a tank not from intermediaries, the cost can be very low and amount to US$20. That is, only 18 per cent of the cost of a similar capacity new water tank. Incredible savings!
But there is an important nuance. When buying such tanks, you need to know what cargo was in these tanks. It is better that it is not a dangerous chemical, but some non-hazardous liquid. This reduces the risks of using water from these tanks. Usually intermediaries hide or do not know the cargo that was transported in the tanks. Therefore, it is best to buy tanks from enterprises that receive raw materials in these tanks. The prices are cheaper there and the purchase is safer there. For this, you need to have connections among the management of large enterprises. In the current market situation, this will allow you to store 10 tons of water for only US$ 200 excluding the cost of delivery of the tanks.
These are just four life hacks for survival related to agriculture. In fact, there are more secrets. And the main life hack is the understanding that the more secrets you know, the greater the chance of being successful in business during the war. Peace to your home and a good harvest.
Sincerely yours, Kulyuk Pavel from the city of Kramatorsk Donetsk region.
References
1. https://prom.ua/ua/p2372596478-kukuruznyj-napolnitel-dlya.html
2. https://rozetka.com.ua/ua/toys_for_pets/c3439219/63588=211638/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carex_morrowii
4. https://www.reddit.com/r/Dogtraining/comments/6r9hsv/pup_wont_pee_on_concrete_help/
5. https://prom.ua/Rezervuary-i-baki
6. https://prom.ua/p1020936649-emkost-kub-evrokub.html
