I've had a my Freedom Puppy pen for a little while now and have lent it to friends for their litters. I love this pen but the one thing which really worries me is them getting legs/teeth caught in the bars.  Mine are just coming up 5 weeks old now and obviously bite everything including the bars of the pen.  I'm also finding them sleeping with their legs out, ok at the moment but they are getting bigger!  Has anyone found an ingenious way of stopping this from happening but the pups still being able to look out?  I don't really want to put a solid block in as I like them to take in the their surroundings.

I have used the freedom whelping pen several times (large breed) and have never had any problems. The gaps are not very big and as the puppies get older their feet cannot get through the gaps anyway.

Have you though about buying some clear perspex, drilling it and attaching  it to the pen on the inside? I bought some from a company a few years ago (for an internal window) that was around 4 foot by 2 1/2 and 5mm thick, think it cost about £50 with delivery. And they cut it to exact size. http://www.theplasticman.co.uk/

i use cardboard but iv got 2 puppy pens from argos i put cardboard there till pups are older so they cant get thru the bars ,never had a problem with them chewing it!

I have had puppies put their teeth in it and get stuck, but I only have them in it when I am with them, so have released them. This happened three times with my last litter. I think the perspex is an excellent idea, a friend has already suggested this to me and I will definitely use it next time.

The puppies are fine when they get a bit bigger as they don't seem to do it then.

All 3 of my litters have ended up with someone getting teeth and/or legs caught in the bars at some point.  This has also happened with my friends' litters, maybe we have been unlucky!  The perspex is an excellent idea, thanks!

This has happened to my puppies . I've had puppies with their upper and lower jaw caught in the mesh. It has been extremely alarming at the time, with mum and puppy very distressed but we've always been able to free them . I consider it a design fault. My breed are medium to large. I've tried tying cardboard around the base of the panels but of course this just gets trashed. Puppies need to see and be seen but I'm always anxious about the danger posed by this pen.

I've had a few pups (large breed) get their jaws stuck! I have two different puppy pens and the one with the squares - from Crofts I think - is a lot safer because they (squares) are too small. The other one with bars, like on crates/cages, I used the perspex but on the inside to stop them trying to chew the bars. I've only had one puppy that got his jaw stuck on the cage bars, and those bars are a lot harder to squeeze together to free the jaw than on the puppy panels :(

We used corrugated plastic and made a base that went right under the tray and up the inside approx 25 - 30cm's high and used small cable ties that were fastened on the outside of the pen. We found this worked well as pups could still see out and stopped them chewing the bars (also great as stopped any bits from going down the side of the tray onto the carpet).
The cable ties were fastened in various places and near the top puppies didn't chew it at all.

Good idea :) might try that in the cage.

cable ties are a MUST in my toolbox :D I've lost all the clips to the puppy panels so use them instead.

I too have suffered this problem many times large breed, I usually use cardboard with tie wraps to stop them getting their jaw caught.

we have got some lino and put it around the pen with tie cables so easy to keep clean :)

To be fair it is a poor design if everyone has to do so much altering.

I use the standard Croft puppy panels to construct a whelping cave, with the close mesh, and I line that with cardboard, which by three weeks when they are up on their feet and be safely removed.

mine is for older pups its the 1 from argos i have 2 and put them together its massive ...its great for large breeds at 3weeks i wouldnt need to put anything there but this is a toy breed now 5weeks 1 of them can put his head thru so i cant remove yet lol