Cattle Scales what do you use?

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Looking for new load bars for a Gallagher TSI 1. Contemplating alley vs chute, wondering if anyone has any suggestions or pros/cons.


Alleyway is easier, portable and cheaper, but downside id say is having to weight the cow prior to entering the chute for actual handling, ie preg checking, meds ect which will be entered into the scale head.

Chute, more money, less portable, but able to enter the chute, be weighed and worked on right away.

Just curious how others do it.
 
Mine is in the alley immediately before the palpation cage. It was a inexpensive livestock scale kit that I purchased on Amazon for around $200, it works pretty well and I will say that one Saturday morning I thought I was having an issue with it and I called their tech support line, I thought nobody would answer but they did and they were very helpful so I would recommend it to anyone as a starter scale with no bells and whistles.
I don't have the EID readers, or any stored file of weights to upload, etc.
I work the cow that's in the chute and let it lose, then I get the weight of the next one in line before it enters the chute.
 
If the load bars are under the chute, you get a good weight regardless of whether the animal is pushing on the front gate, back gate or sides. All weight/force is on the load bars. If you are weighing in the alley, you have to stop the animal on the scale without them putting any of their weight on the panels or gates around them, unless you have independent panels and gates supported off the scale system. Weaning age calves like to walk backwards and press against the stops behind them when they are stopped on the alley scale.
 
We use tru test load bars under our chute as well. We really like it and have had no issues in the several years (over 5 at least) that we've had them.
 
If the load bars are under the chute, you get a good weight regardless of whether the animal is pushing on the front gate, back gate or sides. All weight/force is on the load bars. If you are weighing in the alley, you have to stop the animal on the scale without them putting any of their weight on the panels or gates around them, unless you have independent panels and gates supported off the scale system. Weaning age calves like to walk backwards and press against the stops behind them when they are stopped on the alley scale.
Thats a really good point I hadnt thought of , sounds like chute bars are the ideal solution.
 
If you put the load bars in the chute then they get more abused by the cattle than if they were in the alley. I'd probably get a tray that you can take out when you don't need to weigh cattle.
 
True test under the chute. I had alley way cheaper ones before this and would not go back to that. I had the same problem as others trying to keep the animal from not fouling the weight by leaning against the back or sides.
Under the chute also means one less set of gates.
 
You can weight hay bales, feed when you mix different stuff together, weight your kids grand kids...
 
I'd put them under the chute, to avoid the leaners. You may not want to run every animal that comes through the land into the chute though, depending on how you're set up... the separate "tray" that you could put in either place sounds like a solution... but you'll still have the "leaner" problem then. I got my scales on Amazon, like J+Cattle. For $200, you could just about put one in both places, and not have to think about moving it.
 
Mostly I use the sale yard scale. That or the neighbors scale if I feel the urge to weigh one. He has a Powell platform scale. It is 8 by 16(?). I don't know what the limits are on it. But we have weighed 10 600 pound steers together.
 

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