# handling facilities what do you use??



## SteveO (Apr 14, 2009)

I use a portable corral panels at this point but yesterday had to cancel sending the the girls in to be bred as her calf went under the panels back into the field and wasn't coming back.
I had my wife helping but she is afraid of the cattle and shouldn't be in with me. So I need something I can do by my self to vacinate and or load out.
Ideas PLEASE

Steve


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## spinandslide (Jun 6, 2008)

Get a good dog? LOL

Im not sure if we are talking beefies or dairy here..I have beef cattle..We bought a headgate and attached it to where our evetuall squeeze chute will be..then used the portable panels to create a chute..for vaccinations..worming, I use pour on and they are all quiet enough I can do that while their noses are buried in some cake.

Squeeze chutes an INVALUABLE..but expensive..hence us just pruchasing the headgate and DH building the actual squeeze chute part.

I guess the calf getting out situation..was the calf that young? Ive used corral panels for year to load and not had an issue, save once with one heifer who JUMPED the panels..but the dog brought her back for me.

How were you trying to load them??? Were you "pushing" on them alot?


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## SCRancher (Jan 11, 2011)

For-Most Livestock Equipment | Model 450 & 450W Squeeze Chute

Is what I use - expensive but I don't have health insurance so getting injured once would seriously outweigh the cost of the equipment.


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## Carol K (May 10, 2002)

I use a priefert manual headgate, and a chute built out of 2x6's. Whatever you use, just try and get the cattle used to it, make them walk through it on a regular basis then you shouldn't have trouble working them. I send my calves and my sheep through it all the time.

Carol K


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## G. Seddon (May 16, 2005)

We bit the bullet and had someone who's VERY experienced design and build a working area in our pens alongside the barn. We already had a squeeze chute but no reliable way to get the animals into it. It is worth every penny to have a safe way to work and load cattle. Here are a couple of photos:

We move the animal through the green gate, into a very small area between the green gate and the silver gate. To the right is the alley leading to the squeeze chute. 










The silver gate can be moved to push the cow through the alley to the squeeze chute. The silver gate can only go in one direction. Here's the view down the alley (29" wide) into the chute. Yes, little calves can turn around in there but can't hurt themselves.










After an animal leaves the squeeze chute, she will turn right and then be shuttled out through the silver and green gates into the far pen, then to her pasture. 

You can also see corral panels placed inside the old board fencing; they are tall enough that nobody tries to jump. 

We don't have a large herd, so I don't bring in more than 6 animals at a time. It's easier to do all this with a helper, but if I have to do it myself, I can. I usually have "dress rehearsals" when I run them through without closing the headgate, so they are familiar with the process before the vet comes or something. It was worth every penny to have this all done...it provides a safe way to work on an animal and the vets love it as much as I do. We can also move corral panels so that an animal can be safely loaded into a trailer backed up to the chute.


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## agmantoo (May 23, 2003)

Here is a design that is hard to beat. It is cost efficient and it works. Remember to scroll design when the site opens. This is something you can build.
Dickinson Cattle Co. Inc. > Home > BRY Longhorn Chute > main >


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## Allen W (Aug 2, 2008)

Set some posts and bolt the portable panels to them. A lot of corrals set up around here that way.


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## ramiller5675 (Mar 31, 2009)

I built a simple working area with two pens, a crowding tub with two short chutes(one goes to a headgate and the other one is for loading onto a trailer).

I got the ideas for this plan out of a publication from the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension called Modern Corral Design OKE-938 (It costs somewhere around $10 and is about 60pages long). There are a number of different places selling it online and I think Oklahoma State University also sells it somewhere, it should be easy to find with a simple search.

The plan I used was called OK-724-32 Corral for Small Herds, (I modified it so that it was slightly larger) and it is supposed to handle a 40-50 head herd. Even if you don't use any of the plans, it contains a lot of info about building gates, pens, dimensions for chutes, hinge ideas, etc. 

I've also got our chutes built inside of a 2 acre fenced area, so I have a sort of layered sorting system, with an initial sort into the larger area, then another sort into the first pen, etc. It also helps with any "escapes", they can only get out to the previous pen (i.e., when your calf got out, you could have just released the cow back to her calf, then brought both of them back through the chute, instead of trying to bring a single calf back from a bigger pasture).


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