Ideas for calving facility

[johndeerefarmer]

I have spent the summer building a new corral, holding pens, tub, etc out of pipe and sucker rod. I have a branch off of the main chute with my Powder River squeeze chute which I will use for ear tagging, shots, etc. This is a manual chute, no hydraulics. My question pertains to how do you restrain your animals that need assistance while calving? For the last 40 years we have just roped them and tied them short to a post and either pulled by hand or with a puller. Before I had by dad to help me. He is now 86 and can only give me verbal assistance. I need a way to do it alone. I am afraid to put them in the chute for if they fall down I don't know if I get get the chute open to get them out. What I mean is there weight may prevent me from opening the chute. If I tie them to a pole in our calving barn, they tend to want to move all over the place. Makes it tough to do anything until they finally lay down. My idea is to take my old Priefert headgate and mount it between two posts in the middle of my calving barn. I would rope her, pull her head thru the headgate via the rope and a pulley mounted on a barn post, then lock her head into the chute. I was thinking of installing two gates that would swing off of the posts that the headgate is mounted too. These gates would latch into the ground to form a stall. This way she couldn't move all around the barn and the headgate would hold her head without choking her. If she fell down, I could swing the gates out of the way as far as 90 degrees. I believe that the headgate is low enough and wide enough at the bottom that she wouldn't choke if she laid down, so I could continue with the calf delivery

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[3waycross]

Sounds like a good plan. The only thing i wonder about is dragging her into that headcatch. You night try to use a halter, after you get her caught so that she don't choke down..

We always had a lot of luck just getting them in a real small area and if they needed squeezed using a small panel. However that's a 2 man job and your idea seems to be a good one. Just make sure You can get her out of the headcatch if she goes down.

I always want to set up a Medina gate rig with a small gate that opened on one end so that she could be squeezed from both sides and worked on from the back.

 

[dun]

We put a halter on them in the sqeeze then let them out and tie the hlater lead to the chute so if the go downthere won;t be problems. If the calf jack is going to be needed we put that on first, THEN let them out.

 

[Angus Cowman]

We have always just ran them in the chute and caught their head and pulled the calf never had one go down in the chute

 

[dun]

We have always just ran them in the chute and caught their head and pulled the calf never had one go down in the chute

I did once, that's why we do it the way we do now. Thought I was going to have to break out the cutting torch to get her out.

 

[plumber_greg]

Go to Powder River or Linn Post and pipe's websites. Look at their calving pens. I built one in the barn out of stuff on hand. Both gates open by the headgate for full access. One trick I learned is to get a headgate that is straight where their head goes. That way if they go down, they won't choke as bad and you can just open the headgate to let the pressure off. gs

 

[flinthillscowboy]

We have 4 stalls in the barn for calving/pairing up heifers. The end stall has a Medina set-up coming off of it. We can walk them out of the stall right up into the headgate and open the sides for pulling a calf if she needs assistance. There is also a loop set into concrete in front of the headgate to tie a halter to so we can open the headgate if she goes down. It also works well for getting a calf to nurse if the heifer is "uncooperative" (!)... When the calf is out, she can either walk out the headgate or right back into the same pen.

 

[Angus Cowman]

We have always just ran them in the chute and caught their head and pulled the calf never had one go down in the chute

I did once, that's why we do it the way we do now. Thought I was going to have to break out the cutting torch to get her out.

I guess I just use better chutes than the rest of you because mine will open up on either side and front and back I have had a cow down in it and have no problem getting it open
I guess if ya use them cheap farm store chutes you might have a problem
guess that goes back to the saying you get what ya pay for

 

[dun]

We have always just ran them in the chute and caught their head and pulled the calf never had one go down in the chute

I did once, that's why we do it the way we do now. Thought I was going to have to break out the cutting torch to get her out.

I guess I just use better chutes than the rest of you because mine will open up on either side and front and back I have had a cow down in it and have no problem getting it open
I guess if ya use them cheap farm store chutes you might have a problem
guess that goes back to the saying you get what ya pay for

My problem ewas that she was wedged so tight I couldn;t get the latches unbound enough to move them

 

[cypressfarms]

We have always just ran them in the chute and caught their head and pulled the calf never had one go down in the chute

I did once, that's why we do it the way we do now. Thought I was going to have to break out the cutting torch to get her out.

I guess I just use better chutes than the rest of you because mine will open up on either side and front and back I have had a cow down in it and have no problem getting it open
I guess if ya use them cheap farm store chutes you might have a problem
guess that goes back to the saying you get what ya pay for

I'd have to go with Ac. We have a Powder River that's at least 15 years old; Completely manual operation but it has a handle to pull that controls a cable which lets the right side of the chute swing out. We've never lost a cow due to it.

 

[Angus Cowman]

I did once, that's why we do it the way we do now. Thought I was going to have to break out the cutting torch to get her out.

I guess I just use better chutes than the rest of you because mine will open up on either side and front and back I have had a cow down in it and have no problem getting it open
I guess if ya use them cheap farm store chutes you might have a problem
guess that goes back to the saying you get what ya pay for

My problem ewas that she was wedged so tight I couldn;t get the latches unbound enough to move them

thats the problem with alot of chutes they won't open up wide enough to get a cow out especially the ones that use a V shape to squeeze use a vertical squeeze and you don't have that problem also install a brisket bar and you won't have that problem either

ETA you can also fix your chute where you can slide bars thru it under the cow where she can't go down

 

[angus9259]

Slide bars under the cow are a good idea.

Another option is to use two heavy gates and a chain. If you run her between two heavy gates with one chained so it won't swing open, you can get her into the headgate w/o and rope . . . or you could put her between two gates and halter her head to a post at the front of the gates. Either way, with one gate that will swing out it'll solve the problem. Then, worst case dun scenario, all you have to do is get out the bolt cutters or grinder and cut the chain if it gets too strained to unhook. You could also rope the one gate with a slipnot so it would pull free regardless of strain.

 

[dun]

I haven;t had the problem with a Priefert. I had that happen probalby 30 years ago with a heavy duty WW, back in the days when they made a huge one that they labeled as being for continentals. That was the chute I had. I just got used to doing the halter deal and haven;t seen a reason to change

 

[johndeerefarmer]

Thanks for the ideas. I haven't had a cow go down in my Powder River but don't want to find out what happens if I do. Yes, it has a rope to pull to open one side. Even then I would probably have to drag her out of the chute as she probably wouldn't be able to get her neck and head out of the chute

i do have a halter that I put on them because years I go I learned that I didn't like cutting my good lariats with a pocket knife when a cow is choked.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Our calving facility is separate from our working facility by about a 1/2 mile. However, even if it was not, we would have made a separate branch off the working chute. We bought a maternity pen. Nothing fancy, a no name one built by a farmer looking to diversify his/her farm. I have to say, I don't know why we did not buy one sooner.
The head gate is straight down. And you can if you need to, open it from the back side of the cow in the event of an emergency. It is a 10x10 pen so you can lock the cow up in the pen if you think she is having problems to keep an eye on her.
Two gates pivot 180 degrees. one is the back gate so it completely opens up once you catch her in the head gate, giving you ample room to work her if she goes down.
The other gate is attached at the head gate and it also splits length wise. It is on the same side as where the vet does the c section. This is nice. It either helps to keep her from moving side to side while the vet does a c section or the bottom half swings away if you need to assist a calf to suck on the cow....or if she lays down while calving. The pin to split the panel is easy to use when the need arises . On the other side of the head gate is the solid pannel, but it to splits at the bottom incase the cow lays down or if you need to assist the calf onthe other side for sucking. Cost $1800 CND. that is when mat pens from places like high qual were over 3 grand. in honest I dunno why we did what we did before. Now the animal is secure, we are safe and the stress on the cow and farmer have been greatly reduced. Hubby's shoulder has been saved as well.

 

[Kingfisher]

Our calving facility is separate from our working facility by about a 1/2 mile. However, even if it was not, we would have made a separate branch off the working chute. We bought a maternity pen. Nothing fancy, a no name one built by a farmer looking to diversify his/her farm. I have to say, I don't know why we did not buy one sooner.
The head gate is straight down. And you can if you need to, open it from the back side of the cow in the event of an emergency. It is a 10x10 pen so you can lock the cow up in the pen if you think she is having problems to keep an eye on her.
Two gates pivot 180 degrees. one is the back gate so it completely opens up once you catch her in the head gate, giving you ample room to work her if she goes down.
The other gate is attached at the head gate and it also splits length wise. It is on the same side as where the vet does the c section. This is nice. It either helps to keep her from moving side to side while the vet does a c section or the bottom half swings away if you need to assist a calf to suck on the cow....or if she lays down while calving. The pin to split the panel is easy to use when the need arises . On the other side of the head gate is the solid pannel, but it to splits at the bottom incase the cow lays down or if you need to assist the calf onthe other side for sucking. Cost $1800 CND. that is when mat pens from places like high qual were over 3 grand. in honest I dunno why we did what we did before. Now the animal is secure, we are safe and the stress on the cow and farmer have been greatly reduced. Hubby's shoulder has been saved as well.

Can you show us a picture of this set up? Merry Christmas!

 

[rockridgecattle]

I will see if i have on somewhere, if not I will take a pic after Christmas

Merry Christmas

 

[randiliana]

Here's some photos of our calving pen. A self catch headgate and 2 gates that swing so you can push a cow up into the headgate. The gates can be chained together to keep a reluctant cow from getting out.

 

[johndeerefarmer]

Thanks for the pixs and the ideas.

Merry Christmas

 

[CKC1586]

Love this system:
http://www.siouxsteel.com/index.php/pro ... lving-pen/