Cattle Handling System Build

[Andrew]

Back in the second half of 2015 we demolished an old pole barn and replaced it with a big portal frame, the fitting out / desin of which is in this thread:
https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/cattle-shed-build.102186/

The original, overall design plan of the building is here and has not changed much.

The handling system was put in place and the extra bits were mocked up with hurdles and string etc. We kept making a few alterations, and by summer 2016 we were fairly happy with it and considering making it permanent. In November 2016 I went on a day course between Milton Keynes and Leighton Buzzard, run by Miriam Parker.
Some people don’t agree with her, personally I thought she talked a lot of sense and gave us some good ideas.
I was thinking about making a one way gate at the end of the race, however she talked me out of it and suggested making everything higher, and cladded.

At the time, this was the basic setup:

As you can see we had no cladding at all, but the basic design is very similar to above, and I decided to make it permanent.

Then I got sidetracked and built a load of bale grabs for ourselves and a few customers, and doing some contract design work for a local company. Add in the normal jobs on a mixed farm, all the machinery servicing (we run a hay and straw business too) and another part time job at the local sailing club and it was soon harvest again. October was spent silaging, then modifying and repairing a different cattle yard, cleaning kit etc so it was November 2017 before I could get back to the handling system. It was a part time build so was all built in bits the workshop and taken round to minimise disruption, although we did have to concrete 2 new posts in. To help with this the more complicated parts were modelled on a 3d cad system I use, Solid Edge.

This is the result:

Cattle can come into the system through a gate from the first yard, above, or the second, below.

Or from across the yard:

Both the gates into the system are height adjustable to allow for the muck.

Then we move down to the forcing pen. I looked at getting steel rolled into curves, but due to needing access for various reasons we’ll come to later, the entire curve needed to be split into 3 swing gates so I went for 5 sections between 2 and 4 feet long to make it cheaper.

The reality of this is that instead of the gap at the end of the forcing gate remaining constant, it varies between 0.5-2 inches. Certainly not worth bothering about when it saved £500.

I also opted to have lengths of 2” box inside the pen (which is 6ft high) as this makes a ratchet for the gate making it safer formyhe operator, while keeping it nice and smooth for the animals to rub by. I used stokboard rather than galv sheet as it isn’t reflective, which cattle don’t like, but it also deadens the noise and keeps the cattle calmer.

The forcing gate has a ratchet which allows a maximum rearwards travel of 400mm, which should help stop anyone getting injured. The white rope goes to a cleat allowing it to be locked open if needed.
The main components are 2 spare concrete panel clamps and 2 MF2290 baler puckup tines!

The latch also allows the gate to be latched open, but pulled closed quickly:

One edge of the pen is set straight in line with the race, the other at 30 degrees as Miriam suggests. Before it was approximately 40 degrees. The worst view from the pen down the race still allows them to see down the race, as everything else is cladded 6ft high they naturally wander down the race.

Thats all the pictures I’m allowed in one post, part 2 comining soon!

 

[Andrew]

The forcing gate itself has a small step on it to allow us to see over the gate of necessary. This fits into a hole that allows us to walk down the side of the race and behind the gate quickly and easily.

Several other walkeays are located allowing us to see in, with a step on the right to allow us to go around the sliding gate on rhe end of the race if it’s open.

The forcing pen step when the gate is open:

The rear sliding gate can be controlled from the middle of the race, where the operator works the middle sliding gate, using the white string. We only use this when the last animal had entered the race.
However, we have not had to use these walkways yet because I fitted to big mirrors to see in. Combine that with the natural inquisitiveness of cattle and they just keep coming down the race! We also have a whiteboard for noting weights for treatments etc.

A load of ammo boxes got bolted to the wall to store hoof trimming gear, clippers, taggers etc. Also note the led lead light which can be hung anywhere near the crush for extra light when working on hooves. I used to have a battery one but it kept getting borrowed. No one bothers taking a corded one!

You may have noticed we have a sliding gate half eayndown the race. The primary reason for this is we have a weighing floor in the front half. This worked well, however it was literally all inside the race so kept getting jammed with muck. So we cut the bottom out of the race and extended the platform each side to stop the muck getting underneath. Bolted some silage wrap inner tubes there to to hold sticks (which appear to have gone walkies!)

The ‘straight’ side of the race is quite narrow in places on the back of our grainstore. One half of the walkway was 1ft above the other, it was a recipe for twisted ankles, especially as it is the main access to the grain fan and electric distribution for the whole farm. So I put in a false floor:

Which allows us to see nicely into the pen if necessary.

So, the reason the forcing pen needed to be three gates:
Two of them open so as to allow forklift access to the isolation pen. Feed is put from the mixer wagon into the forklift bucket which is then tipped in the trough.
The third section (off to the left near the grainstore) allows easier access to the grain fan. The isolation pen is emptied and cleaned before the fan is used.

The feed trough is made so that the gate can open into the remaining gap, preventing cattle from going back down the race or giving a free 3.2m run to the pen for mucking out.

 

[Andrew]

Finally, the crush was modified, bolting a length of angle onto one side and welding a D shape to the rear bar. This allows easy use, but as soon as it turns slightly it prevents the cow from shuffling the bar out.


In all the project has taken me about 10 days spread over 2 months. I’ve used about 20 lengths of 2” box, 10 of 1” box, some angle, 20 sheets of stokboard and some rsj posts.

However the cattle just keep following through, even year old heifers which are usually the troublesome group. We can sort 2 ways easily or 3 ways if necessary from the crush. This has already saved is no end of time - we had a group of 60 cows and calves that 2 of us weaned in about 10 minutes- we used to have 4 and still take twice as long! Its safer and easier to, worth every penny in my opinion.

 

[bert]

Excellent work, could do with you here for 10 days

 

[exmoor dave]

Absolutely fantastic

 

[milkloss]

Thanks for posting this, very interesting and good work

 

[Horn&corn]

Thanks for this and Already planning how to make this in the new shed! Good to hear how well they wander down the race and it will be interesting to see if they do that every 60days!

 

[ploughman1963]

Well done! Looks very good.

 

[Andrew]

Thanks for this and Already planning how to make this in the new shed! Good to hear how well they wander down the race and it will be interesting to see if they do that every 60days!

The more often you do it the better, although it depends what you’re doing to do them. Something nice like just weighing and release and they’ll come easy. Ram something down their throats every time and they might not!

 

[KennyO]

@Andrew excellent work. Could you tell us the size of the space that you fitted all this into? Thanks

 

[Andrew]

@Andrew excellent work. Could you tell us the size of the space that you fitted all this into? Thanks

The race and forcing pen is about 20m long, 5.5m wide. The walkway between the race and grainstore is another 0.8m wide, narrowing to about 0.4m wide where the posts are.
The isolation pen at the back is 3.2m x 7m.

The forcing pen itself is a 3.2m radius.

If we split 2 ways from the crush both lots go to the right out of the crush. If we split 3 ways the 3rd will go to the left into the 1st yard if that makes sense, so the system grows by the length of a 10ft hurdle!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I reallt like some of the little finishing touches - like the D shaped piece on the rear bar - going to do that to mine next chance I get.
Very good work - gold star
You've got me thinking again about a circular forcing pen, my yards are good but not a patch on yours!

 

[Andrew]

I reallt like some of the little finishing touches - like the D shaped piece on the rear bar - going to do that to mine next chance I get.
Very good work - gold star
You've got me thinking again about a circular forcing pen, my yards are good but not a patch on yours!

Thanks! I'm happy with it.

We've done some serious work in the last 15 years, from dark, dingy brick built stables for isolation pens, a horrible handling system, feeding by wheelbarrow and hay racks etc to what we have now. For example the old 'fat yards' were the pole barn that we replaced in 2015, it was split into 2, we spent ages trimming cattle, and it had 4 gates total so we were very limited to what we could do. The replacement is split into 5 and has 34 gates - more than we had in the entire farm 15 years ago! It's been very expensive, very time consuming, but worth it in the end.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Thanks! I'm happy with it.

We've done some serious work in the last 15 years, from dark, dingy brick built stables for isolation pens, a horrible handling system, feeding by wheelbarrow and hay racks etc to what we have now. For example the old 'fat yards' were the pole barn that we replaced in 2015, it was split into 2, we spent ages trimming cattle, and it had 4 gates total so we were very limited to what we could do. The replacement is split into 5 and has 34 gates - more than we had in the entire farm 15 years ago! It's been very expensive, very time consuming, but worth it in the end.

It's a work of art.
Much different compared to our style of permanent outdoor yards we see over here for cattle, can definitely see the merit of cladding when you see your fine set-up and how it will look to the cattle.
Great food for thought, for me, well done!

 

[Bobthebuilder]

just need to build a roof over our setup first but the angle iron on the crush and the D on the pipe idea maybe getting stolen sick of the cattle here swinging their arses and sliding the bar out just as you go in behind them

 

[Bobthebuilder]

also the spring idea on the forcing gate catch may have to be stolen for something as well

 

[roscoe erf]

The more often you do it the better, although it depends what you’re doing to do them. Something nice like just weighing and release and they’ll come easy. Ram something down their throats every time and they might not!

have you got any better more detailed pictures of the sliding gate you made
looks a good set up well done

 

[Andrew]

just need to build a roof over our setup first but the angle iron on the crush and the D on the pipe idea maybe getting stolen sick of the cattle here swinging their arses and sliding the bar out just as you go in behind them

No worries, I half stole that idea from some French crush at SIMA. They had a full circle on the bar and a bit of flat with slotted holes bolted to the crush. Lift the flat and slide in. Mine was a development - easier to use but not quite as reliable.

also the spring idea on the forcing gate catch may have to be stolen for something as well

I spent ages thinking of something to use and then hit upon the pickup tines! Then walking round LAMMA on Wednesday and saw Clipex using the same idea on their forcing gate!

have you got any better more detailed pictures of the sliding gate you made
looks a good set up well done

I can have a look, got CAD drawings I can dig out too if thats any help. Which bit are you interested in?

 

[Gerbert]

I can't really fathom the whole system but very interesting nonetheless as a wel reported build always is!

 

[Magnificent Earwig]

I spent ages thinking of something to use and then hit upon the pickup tines! Then walking round LAMMA on Wednesday and saw Clipex using the same idea on their forcing gate!

The Clipex yard and crush was pretty sweet.
But cracking effort Andrew