We got tired of working hard while working the cattle so we built this system, which takes the stress out of the cattle as well as the people. It is designed to be a one man operation and yet will work with more people.
The crowding tub leads into the 48 foot (about 15 meter) long alleyway which flows into the squeeze inside the shed. It is nice to be able to work on animals out of the weather.
The system can accommodate both calves and large animals, without either of them being able to turn around inside the alleyway.
The cows fit into the alleyway and can not turn around. You will notice that there is no post above the inside wall to hinder the person working with the cattle, so if one decides to inject the animals in the alleyway one does so unobstructed! We were able to do this by building a "H" frame which we buried into the ground. You can also see the blocking gate that is at the half way point, this keeps any animal from backing up very far in the system. The other blocking gate is at the entrance into the alleyway.
The cattle flow around a corner and do not see the end of the system which is conducive to the continued movement of the cattle.
A number of animals can be kept in the crowding tub, ready to be fed into the alleyway. We placed a catwalk around the whole system so the person working the animals is comfortably above the animals and does not need to climb the walls. In the right most part of crowding tub in the above picture we made a gate so a person can get into or out of the crowding tub area without having to walk around the back side.
This is how we adjust the bottom part of the back wall, for smaller or larger animals. It goes from 36" (90 cm) down to 18" (45cm) in increments of 2" (5 cm).
This is a better view of the whole back wall. Adjusting the alleyway so that different animals can comfortably fit through it takes less then 5 minutes. If an animal would go down in the alleyway and not be able to get up we can unlatch the pannel and swing it out of the way so the animal could be freed. The cowboy in the picture is Don Warner.
Here is a video of the
system being used, it is a 20 MB file!
This creation was designed and built by Andy Schuepbach, Stefan Ulrich and Don Warner.
Last Updated 21 Apr 2003
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