posted 5 years ago
My plan this winter is to build a small cattle handling facility on my farm, to have in place before I bring any livestock on site. I've been looking at head gates, and I see two kinds: manual and automatic. They're both "manual" in my opinion, there's no motors or hydraulics or anything, but it's the actuation of how it opens and closes that is the difference. One is a sliding door style, like walking into a home depot or other big box store and two doors part, one sliding to the left and one to the right, and sliding back together again. The "automatic" kind is on hinges, or pivots really, one at the top and one at the bottom of each door, and they swing partly open into the chute, and when a cow walks into it bumping her shoulders into each door, the doors come together securing the bovine's neck, then to release, a lever is pulled and the two doors swing outward and the cow walks through.
Do any cattle handling folks here have one or the other kind, and can you comment on what you like or don't like about how they function? And if you were to be buying a new one, which would you choose?
"Study books and observe nature; if they do not agree, throw away the books." ~ William A. Albrecht