Build new cattle working/shipping pens.

From the ground up.


Taking applications for help. Doesn't pay anything, but all the beer you can drink, BBQ you can eat, and hogs you can shoot...

Just kidding about the help. I do need to be done with this before hot weather hits again.

Not only a lot of work, but, $$$$$$ as well.

Yeah, just got most of the materials bought and hauled them out here. Including a new headgate, and 5 other gates for use in the pens.

Just the treated lumber for the chute and the Quikcrete left to get.

Going to put the PHD to work too. Overtime.



May end up buying a cement mixer before it's all over as well.

What is the fence to be?
Left to their own devices, cattle can, and will make short work of even the older full 1/4" cattle panels, the newer lighter yet panels, they destroy even quicker.
We used some 20' welded 11/4" pipe sections last fall.
I hope they have some staying power!

I've helped some friends in Wva build catch pens out of Locust post and Oak fence boards . Lotta work

Work indeed, once done however, good working facilitates are like a tool made for the job, and it beats the daylights out of chasing bovines all over the place.
Easier on both man, and beast!

Not going the cattle panel or bull panel route. They wreck those pretty fast, IMHO.

Using 8" posts concreted in with very short spans and overlapping layers of very heavy duty net wire stretched and anchored to each load bearing corner post.

For the chute I'm using 8" posts on 5 foot spans, concreted in, and tied and anchored with top cross braces to each opposite post. 2x8 treated lumber for the sides, anchored to the posts with 60d nails.

Also putting in a net/barbwire drift fence to the corner gate to make penning the cattle easier. Dual pen water trough installed and plumbed in from nearby windmill in case I need to hold them in the pens overnight.

When are you starting the actual manual labor?

Ed

I'm gonna give it a day or so because we are supposed to be getting some rain.

Then I'll lay everything out with my survey instrument and start digging post holes with the tractor. (That alone requires some planning as not to run over and fill up previously dug ones.)

Free advise is worth what you pay for it!

Back in the 80's, they started putting, "legs", under cattle, making them taller.
Somehow, that seems to have made the fences shorter.
Tall cattle can jump over, or on, fence that was, was, high enough the years back. I'd make anything new plenty high.
I'll also recommend climbable sides for us ranch hands in case off some critter that takes um-bridge with being herded into a chute!

Not advise here, but some vets like a "tub", a circle with a gate that crowds the cattle into the alley just before the working chute.
Here at our "cattle company", and traveling circus, we ain't that high fulutin'

About 6' sides.

My cattle are gentle. But not saying they can't get froggy if not handled right... I firmly believe in handling them right. (I can walk out in the pasture, even without a sack of cake and lay hands on most of them, bull included.)

I have a gate driven crowding funnel before the chute. I think it'll do ok. Looked at the circle, but was more complicated than I wanted to layout and build for now.

Always appreciate the suggestions though.

Good "luck", with it.
What is the ground cover? Plain dirt gets powerful muddy, and concrete can be slippery for cattle.
I have used 3" lime rock to put sort of a bottom in our corral.

One thing about it, I'm sure the work, and cash will pay dividends.

Luckily here there is 1 1/2 foot of sand, followed by yellowish clay under that.

It can sure get solvent when it's completely saturated, but not muddy. More like quicksand when that happens.

The "tub" system really works good. My in-laws have one. My cattle working facilities are pretty lame compared to that. I used crossties for the posts for the headgate and the catch pen, and oak or treated 2X6's for the rest. I learned real quick that the "economy" corral panels are worthless for holding and working cattle. The important thing is not to give them an opening of any kind that they can stick their nose in, or they'll try and get out. My cattle are fairly gentle, but they don't like being worked.

I agree about leaving them no holes to get started with, James. I have lots of cedar on the place and I'll be clearing areas and save the cedar as stays to be tied in as I go. The more solid it is, the better.

Got me to reflecting about driving through Mexico. (when it was safe to do so..)

There's some pretty barren and poor areas down there, and the corrals in those areas were made from desert plants. Often as not, cactus was planted and cultivated into literally "living working pens".

Wish I had taken pictures of the more elaborate ones. They were impressive.

Now, you have me thinking about the vet saying,"Give it 20 ml of Penicillin for 5 days".
After the seconded day, the critter is pretty chute smart, and they seem to be more than willing to go any direction but, straight up, or straight down!
Or, barrel right back over a fellow like a young Franco Harris, on a good day.

As a career carpenter who apprenticed a couple decades before nail guns were invented just reading that makes my elbow hurt....
To bad because that free beer, BBQ, and Pig slaying was sounding pretty good to me...

If the budget can take it, I'd think about lag bolts with a flat washer, using a cordless driver.
In the bad old days, when we used the 60d's we drilled the plank, and used a flat washer under the head.

It's not too bad, if I take it a bit at a time. Wouldn't want to spend all day doing it... I use a 3 pound hammer to drive them.

Corral work is a never ending battle!


My biggest annoyance....oak rail road ties and pounding nails into them.

Whoa...your project brings back memories. Thirty-five years ago Dad and I built a corral with used railroad ties and highway guard rails. It served us well until a year ago I decided it was not worth the repair anymore. Plus I have cattle in three different pastures.

I have since gone to a portable corral and a "steer stuffer". Working good, only had one breakout. Horse and rope got her doctored.





Good luck on your project.

Roundoak, those look like nice heavy and tall panels.

Last summer we had our Fall shipping/sorting corrals reworked.

Grazing association project.

We used seven rail continuous on everything, the crew pounded in drill stem for posts.

Only downside is you need a torch and welder for any repairs but it is basically a cow prison. Wild old rips that have been out all summer do not try to jump out.

Portable tub and chute(Silencer).

You can load semis on one end, weigh calves in the middle and be preg testing on the other end. If there's enough help around anyway...

The ranch foreman built a super heavy duty(permanent) tub and we use it to work bulls at a different place.

It is impressive and works beyond good. We push 120 or so fullsize grown bulls through it and they don't try to pull any chit.

Wish I had pics of it.

We use a little homemade wooden version at home, handles cows fine but I wouldn't want to work a bunch of bulls with it.

SO, I also considered a sweep tub at the time I purchased this portable setup, but worked several times with a neighbor who had the same setup as what I purchased and thought the extra expense was not justified.

Watch, I will probably be proven wrong.

Of course it just depends on what you're doing.


Loading is generally way easier than getting them up into a squeeze chute(when they know whats gonna happen).

Like Wabigoon mentioned, they will try and avoid a squeeze chute like the plague!

Sam, now we have the elder statesman weighing in! (Sam, not me).

I've been told, in Southern Iowa, the facilities are, one post, a gate, an aluminum stock trailer, and a $50,000 diesel pickup.
Not much down at the "ranch", but they look good once in town.

Richard, I know what you mean!



I see the 'cowboys' riding around town in clean shiny pickups wearing cowboy hats when it's colder than hell and we're in dirty old outfits wearing stocking caps just trying to stay warm....grin

Sam, now comes to mind the old, "The bigger the hat, the smaller the herd."

Or "All hat, and no cattle."

Drugstore cowboys
Dancehall doctors

How is that corral coming along?

Got side tracked with the usual paying projects, but getting close. About ready to hand the gates.

What make of gates? Powder River gates are good, and heavy, Sioux gates, the yellow gates are a tough gate.
Any strong gate tends to lean the post, unless there is a lot of fence on the hinge side to counter the pull of gravity.

Not sure of the brand, but they look like they'll do the job for awhile.

Not too worried about post leaning as I have sunk 8" posts deep and put an H-Brace on each corner and gate post, then concreted them in.

Concreted the chute the same way, with cross braces on top.