Cattle scales? Opinions? Thoughts?

[MagnoliaCattle18]

Curious if there are many here that have bought and used single animal cow scales. Been looking around online and my heads spinning. Need one preferably that I can put in a squeeze chute or in a narrow alleyway. And I don't really have a source of power out there although I could get me a small generator for power. Any ideas or thoughts to get me headed in the right direction with brands or types of scales? Would like to keep it under 2000 bucks but how cheap of setup can you get without compromising quality? Thoughts?

 

[simme]

Power from a 12 volt battery. Look at putting the load bars under the squeeze instead of a separate platform with load bars in the chute or alleyway . Load bars and chute bolt together. Tru-test is a good brand. You can purchase kits much cheaper, but probably not last long.

 

[350farms]

AA scales sells some inexpensive kits, for under $500 and an afternoon of work you can assemble one to for your need. So far mine works great, we will see how long it holds up.

 

[bird dog]

I use TruTest under the chute. Don't need electricity. Probably run closer to $2500. Some people have a lot of luck with the lower prices ones from AA, I didn't. I had problems getting the read out to zero out and work correctly after a year or so. My Trutest's have been in service for about 8 or 9 years and were even moved from one farm to another.

I have little patience. I need them to work correctly with one push of the button. They do.

 

[MagnoliaCattle18]

Ya I've been trying to cheap out but the fact is its for registered animals and probably gonna be in use quite often for the unforeseeable future. Providing we have a country here in the unforeseeable future.. anyways the trutest alleyway setup catches my fancy but I'm curious what the alleyway platform ap600 is rated for weight? May have to do a bit more poking around or call them up..https://www.cattlescales.com/pages/...ns?weighLocation=alleyway&platformWidth=24-in

 

[Lucky]

I've got a squeeze chute with a set of scales from B&B scales build your own kit. Works well rarely use them, around $700 I think.

 

[Double R Ranch]

I have a trutest also. No extra power needed. Unit gets charged in the lab then taken out to the chute when in use. Load bars are bolted to the chute. We have had it a few years now and am pretty happy with it but had some problems in the beginning as the trutest was sold and the company who bought it had no clue about the scales being used with Apple software.
Cattlescales.com has very helpful representatives that can answer lots of question about what you might want/need. They also run occasional sales. Think we got a free year of cattlemax software as well when we bought our unit from cattlescales.com

 

[Boot Jack Bulls]

We had Trutest bars. They were junk. Constantly needing repairs to the bars, mounts and even the read-out. Also had a trough style that was also junk. Now we have a Rice Lake Weighing Systems platform in our alley behind the chute. Tread plate deck, excellent readout, good customer service, super accurate (ours is certified every other year) and we were able to get a deck as long and wide as I wanted. It was not a cheap investment and is heavy as h**l. I imagine shipping cost will be large also, we are lucky that the company is based about 1/2 hour from home.