Things you just have to have to start farming...

[Spiveyman]

Yep, that's it! And that's Bob Dube standing there demonstrating it. The only thing that's not clear in that picture, there's a gate in his hand. It's almost perfectly lined up with the camera so it looks more like a pole than a gate, but that one closes and ratchets in towards the other one. You can squeeze them right up together, so techincally you should be able to work a cat in that thing. OK, maybe not something smaller than the openings, and cats are terribly hard to herd, but you get my point. That is an older design, his first ones. It has horizontal bars all the way across both gates. The bars can release individually to allow for access to brand, but with just the right size animal you release too much pressure when you release the whole bar. Our version has horinzontals on the right half of both gates as you would look at it from this picture, and vertical bars in the rear half that each release for access. You can see palp gates on both ends. And, yes you can release pressure to allow an animal to stand back up. Both gates have ratchets and releases on them and safety bars so you can set the safety, release the ratchet and allow it to loosen one notch at a time or just swing the thing wide open in either direction.

You can also see in this picture why the alley leading up the side of this chute is so wide, it's the width of the chute, but since there's no small space for the cattle to have to fit through, once you get them on that end of the ally, the gate on the far side there works like a push gate. I'll still try to get some pictures next time I'm out there. Probably soon, we had a calf born last night so I want to get out there to see him.

Thanks.

I thought I'd snag that picture to make it easier to see while you read:

 

[texasjohn]

Got it... sounds like it has lots of very good features, thought thru and improved with some actual experience... I agree. vertical bars would be necessary to provide blocking points for smaller animals. How is the head restrained? By nose pliars only, or with some other device as well?

 

[Spiveyman]

Well, for the larger animals the horns actually help for a change. When you squeeze them up, the horns wind up through the sides of the gates and the get bound pretty well, at least from what I've seen. We are still building our system, so I'll let you know how it really works with our animals once we get to it. I may even try some video. For the smaller ones with smaller horns when they demonstrated giving meds orally and other things they used nose pliers. There is a cleat to tie the string too just above each palp gate on the ends. That way you can work them no matter which way they wind up in the chute. When Bob demonstrated putting a nose ring in a bull, he used a halter and tied that off on the cleat, then popped the ring right through the flesh in the nose.

It's a nice system and seems to be able to do what we need. The only other rout for us due to the horns seemed to be a scissor gate like Powder River's Longhorn Chute. Nice chute, but cost over $5K.

By the way, I was going to mention about your suggestion to shadow another rancher with 30+ head to learn. We've started doing that with a couple of well known folk in this neck of the woods. The thing is, this ain't Texas. You don't exactly find longhorns on every ranch. For that matter, they call them farms up here. But we did seek out some experienced folk and have been learning all we can from them. We've found everyone to be very helpful, willing to take the time to teach us stuff, just like yourself. We appreciate that.

 

[tnau664]

You better have a good wife that doesn't mind getting her hands dirty ever now and again.

Been there, done that.

 

[Spiveyman]

Well.... I do have a good wife, a great wife, however she's not too keen on germs or dirt. I'm working on that. My daughter is just like her. She was probably the only 2 year old on the planet that could not eat unless she had a napkin to wipe her hands on. We took her to the beach and she spent the whole time rinsing the sand off of her beach toys. She refers to her cousins (both younger and older) as "the children."

I do have a son though, 6 monts old so I'm going to make sure he gets dirty often so as to be used to it.

 

[texasjohn]

Unless your partner lives very close by, you need to focus on pens that you can work cattle thru with ONLY YOURSELF. With some thought, you can rig up pulleys/ropes to open/shut gates up ahead as you move the animals from behind, you'll need rope catches that can be easily undone to maniuplate things... Unless there are 2 of you, this will be a key consideration... don't start building without determining how you will work stock which is unwilling to cooperate and get it into the chute without injury to yourself or it...

Think thru several scenarios for each set of pens you draw... and, it may help to take scenarios from some of your shadow cattle working activities... what would do with an animal behaving in a contrary way and move it thru your pens.


I mention this because your wife currently isn't interested, apparetly, in getting too dirty... and working cattle can be a DIRTY business

 

['Bota Fan]

Oh, by the way... I have a 5 foot PVC pipe, about 2 inches in diameter, schedule 40, that I always carry when I'm messing with cattle... amazing how it makes your arms longer and keeps you safer... you can reach out and poke stuff, protect yourself, bang something on the horn, the nose, it's great both in the pasture and in the pen... never mess with stock without it!

my opinion, your experience may vary (but I doubt it).

Read this and had to share a memory. Years ago, we had a dozen cattle. Fed them hay in the winter and it was a good walk to the barn. One old girl always had to be the first in line and wanted to rush me. Didn't have the sense to carry PVC then, but kept a good old-fashioned stick of wood with me to hit her across the nose to slow her down. Got to calling her "Blinky" because for the rest of her days, she'd blink when she saw me, with or w/o the stick!

 

[texasjohn]

Well, Bota_fan, I know just what you mean... and, I bet she shook her head slightly to one side as well as if dodging your swing

 

[Spiveyman]

Unless your partner lives very close by, you need to focus on pens that you can work cattle thru with ONLY YOURSELF. With some thought, you can rig up pulleys/ropes to open/shut gates up ahead as you move the animals from behind, you'll need rope catches that can be easily undone to maniuplate things... Unless there are 2 of you, this will be a key consideration... don't start building without determining how you will work stock which is unwilling to cooperate and get it into the chute without injury to yourself or it...

Think thru several scenarios for each set of pens you draw... and, it may help to take scenarios from some of your shadow cattle working activities... what would do with an animal behaving in a contrary way and move it thru your pens.


I mention this because your wife currently isn't interested, apparetly, in getting too dirty... and working cattle can be a DIRTY business

I can tell you have some good experience here. That is definitely part of the plan. Our farms are about and hour and a half apart, so I will most definitely need to be able to work them myself. My papaw has a small cattle farm about 2 1/2 miles down the road (the small was in reference to his farm, not the cattle - they are regular size ) and has his system set up to do everything by himself at age 80. I've taken some notes from him as he's a great resource (I'm trying to get them to get broadband internet so he can get join us here at TBN). Anyway, we do want a very well thought out plan that will be operable by one person.

One thing we've learned so far from another guy using a squeeze chute only, no head gate - we have the most aweful time getting those bulls off the trailer and into the slaughter house. Besides the normal stuff of not recognizing the area and smelling the blood, they can't get their horns through the very small gate when they walk up to it. Having never had to do that before they kind of freak out. But the bull with the largest set of horns yet (they touched both sides of the trailer, he could barely turn around in the trailer!), when he got off the trailer he walked up, turned his head sideways and just walked right through the gate. We couldn't believe it. This bull came from another producer around here who uses head gates with them as much as he can. Moral to our story, we're going to put a section in the system just to teach them to navigate narrow spaces with those horns so that they will know how to deal with it when we need them to on that fateful day in each of their lives.

 

[texasjohn]

Since you are still in the planning phases, let me tell you about a dream I had too late... after my pens and chutes were in place.

I wish that I could get all the stock into one pen, then lead them with a feed bucket from that pen ito the smaller pen, then long chute, thru the squeeze chute (which would be completely open at max width and headgate open) and out into another pen where the feed trough would be.

Cattle pattern very easily.... they will follow each other single file and calves will follow their mothers rather well. Using this entry pattern often when messing with the cattle (feed, observation, showing them to people, etc... not branding or hurting them) makes it sooooo much easier when working them for real and catching them in a chute.... After working the adult herd thru the pens this way a few times, they animals will willingly enter the main pen and stand waiting for you to open the gate to the chute and thus feed bunk at the other end. I have a neighbor who did this and I kicked myself for not realizing that this could be done.

If you set up something like this, then as the calves horns grow, they would naturally learn how to turn their heads. This assumes that you leave the horns on.... for the animals destined for slaughter, I wonder why not remove them with an electric dehorner before they are 3 weeks old or so... reduces bruses.

It's just an idea.