Cattle working setup

Going to build a new "alley way" for leading the cattle into our head chute. I am putting sliding gates in between each "section" of the alley.

Idea is for there to be 1 or 2 cows on deck in the alley, make things go better and smoother.

Question is.....what is a ideal length of a alley section? I see tarter has panels that are 10' for this purpose. That seems long to me. I was thinking about 8'. Our head chute is 7' total length, 8' should give plenty of room to get the cow in and gate slid shut?

Experience greatly welcomed.....prefer to build this the right way once....lol.

8 feet sounds short to me- if your 7' head chute is full of cow when she's in there, you also have to take into account the 1.5 to 2' of cow that is in front of the chute (head and neck).

Yep.....didn't take into account the head. lol. See...it pays to ask questions!

On BIG cattle eight feet is not enough. You also are going to find that slide gates do not work very well with cattle. We have the drop down stops that keep the cattle from backing up. These work better as the cattle can walk under them while you are working the cattle ahead.

Here are some pictures of a top stop and one of a side style stop. I think either would work better than slide gates.

10' seems about right. That gives a couple feet so the on deck cow is not right up the butt of the cow in the chute. Especially helpful if you get a hesitant one. Growing up we had a similar alley with 16' gates for the sections and we slid a 4x4 post through the gate slats to keep cows from backing out. Even with 16' you couldn't be daydreaming if you got one that was hellbent not to go in that chute! I just remember those gates being all beat to he!! after years of abuse. Good luck and let us know how it all works!

JD, curious as to why the slide gates don't work well. Seems like it would, I'll bet you know why it don't thought, I appreciate the feedback.

Is 10' enough for the alley way sections? or should it be 12'?

(quoted from post at 16:28:41 06/25/13) JD, curious as to why the slide gates don't work well. Seems like it would, I'll bet you know why it don't thought, I appreciate the feedback.

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One when you go to shut the gate the cattle behind will have their head in the way. Two You will not get them all the way shut and have a big cow or steer run through it and it will be bent and stuck half way closed/open.

Do you load cattle through your rear slide door on the cattle trailer??? It is a real pain when you get down to the last few head and are in close quarters.

The automatic type are just as cheap to make and work while your behind the cattle. The object is to keep the cattle moving forward. Not have them in individual pens. At least that is what I want at the chute.

If you want to separate some just put some holes in your chute's side walls for cross bars to be stuck through.

Also 10 foot is about the right length for all cattle. For steers and calves 9 will work but full size cow it takes 10.

I don't like most automatic stops. Our cattle won't hardly push past them, but the automaics are better then the slide doors. Another draw back to a slide door, is you have to walk around it.

We do not load out of the chute YET....but I intend to start to do that when I have this thing capable of doing so.

What about "doors" rather than slide gates inside the chute. Just curious on your opinion of those also. I have thought about the top down stoppers, but we run our calves thru the chute as well....and someone (usually dad) is in the alley getting them down the chute. I can see a lot of cussing after he hits his head repeatedly on one of those.....he can be a slow learner. lol.

The side and top "no-backs" I have used are similar to JD's pics. If the width of the walkup is adjustable, the "no backs" will sometimes work without adjustment, sometimes will also require adjustment for different sizes and weights. Once a set of cattle have been worked two or three times, "no-backs" work pretty well. Most of the time, I have latched them out of the way for calves. I have also seen a top hung "no-back" made out of 1/4" or 5/16" chain that worked very well on yearlings or larger plus its easier for someone to jump in the alley and crowd calves without injuring themselves on pipe "no-backs".

The best thing we had for an alley way was a tapered sides, and each section had a small turn in it so the cattle could not see the end and they would keep moving forward. Also the top gate worked the best. This also worked the best for roping steers.

Take a look at a W-W system with adjustable curved alley with a gate crowd pen. Add a Silencer electric chute to the front. Our vet regularly PG test about 60 cow per hour thru our system. we do have a slide gate ahead of the palp cage.

Most of the top down stops have a chain or rope to lock them up. It is not a problem to walk down the chute.

We use the adjustable WW Livestock panels that adjust in width. We have a series of holding pens with gates at each end, then the lane panels at the end of the last pen. The last pen is funneled down to the max lane panel width. The idea is to have the back panels attached to your holding pen at the widest they will go and narrow the lane width as you get closer to the head catcher. We have the WW spring loaded stop bars, but they are kinda a headache. Just sliding a simple 2x4 or steel pipe at each panel in behind them as they move forward seems to work the best. Sometimes the smaller calves aren't strong enough to push the spring loaded bar forward. Our WW head catcher is actually inside a holding pen that is attached to the first holding pen so that if one did happen to get through without being caught, we could open the gate and run it back through the series of pens again instead of it going out into open pasture. We also have a 12V set of scales in the lane at the last panel before the head catcher.

We have modified a few things along the way, but now we have it to where one person can work the cattle or weigh them and load them in the trailer.

The main thing is to make the lane narrow so they can't get turned around once started down it

The WW sweeper tub setup is top notch, but you will pay for it.