Favorite Anti Backup design?

[RDFF]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm in the process of building a portable double laneway, 20' long. I've put rolling cut doors on both ends... the disadvantage of them is you have to have somebody operating them, where the walk-throughs/walk-unders are "automatic".

I will be able to slip a rod through from the outside as well, at each of the two center posts, and I could put either a side mounted walk-through OR top mounted walk-under in it, so I have pretty much all the options. However, I don't like that they're always in the way if you need to get into that alley for some reason, especially the walk-unders... real head bangars. The side swingers can end up catching a calf behind the ribs if the ones in front of him start backing when he's in the wrong spot... This is a really nice clean alleyway now, and I think I'd like to keep it that way.

I intend to put a transition down to single opening on the front end yet (the end your looking at in the pic), with a swinging divider in the center. The floor of that transition area will rest on the transport hitch during use, and will fold up against the front end of the lane for transport, and it will have a scale built into it. The transition area will then also be used as my "palp cage area", and I'll place my squeeze chute in front of that if I'm needing it. The sides will be the "palp cage entry doors", and for transport, they will swing all the way around and lock to the sides of the lane. I've also designed the outside walls of both lanes with swinging doors to let out a "down animal", plus, I've left an open space 15" wide between the horizontals the whole length, at an appropriate height for doing things like ultrasounds, CIDR placements, lutalyse injections or vaccinations, etc., anything that you CAN do in the lane then without HAVING to put them into the chute. Even if the chute is in place, the cattle can be individually let out the side at that transition then... I'll only put them into the chute if it's necessary. Chute will hook onto a receiver hitch on the back end for transport.

Here's a pic of it so far, with the doors on one side open and closed on the other. Guard rail on each side of each lane at the bottom, which helps to narrow up the alleys a bit in that area. Each lane above the guard rail is 29 1/2" wide, 22" at the guard rails. I plan to place panels on the inside of the guard rails to narrow it up even more when necessary for small calves... I was planning to make it "adjustable width", but with a double alley AND wanting to keep the ability to open the sides to let out down cows, etc., that quickly gets complicated and expensive. I'll have specially made panels that will hang on the sides for building a really good "Bud Box" coming into this, and then use portable panels as needed for a corral ahead of that. All portable to any pasture.

Planning to rent it out locally when I get it done too... no sense in everybody having to own all this stuff themselves. Just got a MSRP from Arrowquip on their "Heeler" system that is somewhat similar.... $37,000 (no chute with it for that yet)! Gotta say though, I was sure surprised by the high cost of steel when I figured out what I needed to build this thing too! Of course, my labor is "free"...!

I just wanted a really good, functional, portable lane and Bud Box system... Besides running my own smaller herd, I custom graze a fairly large herd, and he does alot of ET's, synchronized AI, etc., and having a really good handling system like this will make my business a highly "value added" opportunity.

Sorry for the grainy pic... I still have an old flip phone..., don't want a phone that's smarter than I am.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm in the process of building a portable double laneway, 20' long. I've put rolling cut doors on both ends... the disadvantage of them is you have to have somebody operating them, where the walk-throughs/walk-unders are "automatic".

I will be able to slip a rod through from the outside as well, at each of the two center posts, and I could put either a side mounted walk-through OR top mounted walk-under in it, so I have pretty much all the options. However, I don't like that they're always in the way if you need to get into that alley for some reason, especially the walk-unders... real head bangars. The side swingers can end up catching a calf behind the ribs if the ones in front of him start backing when he's in the wrong spot... This is a really nice clean alleyway now, and I think I'd like to keep it that way.

I intend to put a transition down to single opening on the front end yet (the end your looking at in the pic), with a swinging divider in the center. The floor of that transition area will rest on the transport hitch during use, and will fold up against the front end of the lane for transport, and it will have a scale built into it. The transition area will then also be used as my "palp cage area", and I'll place my squeeze chute in front of that if I'm needing it. The sides will be the "palp cage entry doors", and for transport, they will swing all the way around and lock to the sides of the lane. I've also designed the outside walls of both lanes with swinging doors to let out a "down animal", plus, I've left an open space 15" wide between the horizontals the whole length, at an appropriate height for doing things like ultrasounds, CIDR placements, lutalyse injections or vaccinations, etc., anything that you CAN do in the lane then without HAVING to put them into the chute. Even if the chute is in place, the cattle can be individually let out the side at that transition then... I'll only put them into the chute if it's necessary. Chute will hook onto a receiver hitch on the back end for transport.

Here's a pic of it so far, with the doors on one side open and closed on the other. Guard rail on each side of each lane at the bottom, which helps to narrow up the alleys a bit in that area. Each lane above the guard rail is 29 1/2" wide, 22" at the guard rails. I plan to place panels on the inside of the guard rails to narrow it up even more when necessary for small calves... I was planning to make it "adjustable width", but with a double alley AND wanting to keep the ability to open the sides to let out down cows, etc., that quickly gets complicated and expensive. I'll have specially made panels that will hang on the sides for building a really good "Bud Box" coming into this, and then use portable panels as needed for a corral ahead of that. All portable to any pasture.

Planning to rent it out locally when I get it done too... no sense in everybody having to own all this stuff themselves. Just got a MSRP from Arrowquip on their "Heeler" system that is somewhat similar.... $37,000 (no chute with it for that yet)! Gotta say though, I was sure surprised by the high cost of steel when I figured out what I needed to build this thing too! Of course, my labor is "free"...!

I just wanted a really good, functional, portable lane and Bud Box system... Besides running my own smaller herd, I custom graze a fairly large herd, and he does alot of ET's, synchronized AI, etc., and having a really good handling system like this will make my business a highly "value added" opportunity.

Sorry for the grainy pic... I still have an old flip phone..., don't want a phone that's smarter than I am.

View attachment 16920

GREAT job! That looks really nice!
Your flip phone must be smarter than mine, I haven't figured out how to post pics from mine to CT.

 

[RDFF]

Thanks! I think it'll be better (in several ways for me at least) than what I've seen available from the manufacturers (ArrowQuip, Wrangler, Diamond W, Titan West, etc.). By using that transition area (2 lanes down to a single exit point) as the "palp cage area" too, you end up with a very much larger, more roomy "palp cage area", instead of being cramped into a tight little narrow working space. By opening both sides there right behind the squeeze chute, and swinging the divider gate out to the side as well, you'll have a fully wide open space for about 6' behind the chute to work in, if you need to. Also serves as a pass-through from one side to the other (like most palp cages do).

I mostly got the idea for planning the design intentionally to work the animals in the lane instead of the chute from Cody Creelman's video (The Cud, Episode 5, The perfect cattle handling system). Just made so much sense to me. You can't see the "horizontal opening" between the rails on the pic above, but it's a 15" space running all along the outside for the whole length of the lanes, from about top of tailhead and down. Here's a pic of the front side section. This whole "door" swings open to let out a down animal if necessary, back section has a door just like it. If the "arm opening" proves to be a problem for animals wanting to try to climb out through it, I'll have a very easily and quickly removable rod through the center of it. I'm confident it won't be an issue with cows, but fool young stock could think they could try to escape! If working only cows for the back end work, you can just take them out... put them back in if young stock are being worked.



I can help you out with your flip phone pics... I send them to my email, paste the email image into a Word document first, and then copy and paste THAT ONE into the CT reply.