My operation is a hobby

[ez14]

I need to get a picture of my medina, before it completely rots down. It has a fairly ingenious (I didn't make it) really large and long bolt on it. The bolt is completely threaded. Really big deep thread. Maybe 5 threads per inch. Not sure what it's off of. It has a nut on the bolt, with dog ears welded on it. You turn the nut with your hands, and it tightens the gate in on the cow. You can get a cow pinched up in it pretty good. Little aggravating to ear tag in it, or drench, but everything else ain't much trouble.

Never used a medina but have put one between a gate and the fence, tied the gate to the fence and pulled a calf. Not the best way in the world but was the only way that day.

the dairy farm i work on if we need to pull a calf thats how we do it just a gate chained at the front put the cow in and chain the back

 

[Cross-7]

Back when I was a kid I didn't have a chute or money for one
I was buying little 3wts calves
I had some portable panels and made an alley with them and wired the two front closed like a V
I'd crowd a half dozen in there and slide a couple wood post behind then so they couldn't back out
It wasn't ideal but sure beat trying to flank one

 

[Caustic Burno]

You would be surprised at the material you can hustle up,
when the county was tearing out the old wooden bridges I got the treated timber and post for clean up. After Rita I got a lifetime supply of broken telephone poles for corners.

 

[Bigfoot]

You would be surprised at the material you can hustle up,
when the county was tearing out the old wooden bridges I got the treated timber and post for clean up. After Rita I got a lifetime supply of broken telephone poles for corners.

My dad was a lineman, and used to get all the light poles he wanted. Come to find out, not all light poles are created equal. Some were junk, and will rot quick. Telephone poles, may be a different story.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Bigfoot I was cutting a creosote one to size the other day the date stamped on it was 1964.

 

[ez14]

Bigfoot I was cutting a creosote one to size the other day the date stamped on it was 1964.

Thats good to know i just put a few of those in

 

[M-5]

the good ones you can smell the creosote when you walk by it. It also help to cap it will bull (asphalt flashing cement) after its been cut

 

[TexasBred]

I need to get a picture of my medina, before it completely rots down. It has a fairly ingenious (I didn't make it) really large and long bolt on it. The bolt is completely threaded. Really big deep thread. Maybe 5 threads per inch. Not sure what it's off of. It has a nut on the bolt, with dog ears welded on it. You turn the nut with your hands, and it tightens the gate in on the cow. You can get a cow pinched up in it pretty good. Little aggravating to ear tag in it, or drench, but everything else ain't much trouble.

Never used a medina but have put one between a gate and the fence, tied the gate to the fence and pulled a calf. Not the best way in the world but was the only way that day.

the dairy farm i work on if we need to pull a calf thats how we do it just a gate chained at the front put the cow in and chain the back

This must be a dairy thing. I owned a dairy at the time as well. :clap:

 

[ez14]

Never used a medina but have put one between a gate and the fence, tied the gate to the fence and pulled a calf. Not the best way in the world but was the only way that day.

the dairy farm i work on if we need to pull a calf thats how we do it just a gate chained at the front put the cow in and chain the back

This must be a dairy thing. I owned a dairy at the time as well. :clap:

:lol:

 

[hillbilly beef man]

the good ones you can smell the creosote when you walk by it. It also help to cap it will bull (asphalt flashing cement) after its been cut

These are the best poles, a close second are the green salt treated. The worst ones are the newer brown poles. Most companies cannot give them away for fear of a lawsuit if someone uses them to smoke meat and kills someone. But if you can catch the line crews pulling old poles near your place and tou can keep quiet where they came from they have a strange way of "appearing" on your farm.

 

[M-5]

the good ones you can smell the creosote when you walk by it. It also help to cap it will bull (asphalt flashing cement) after its been cut

These are the best poles, a close second are the green salt treated. The worst ones are the newer brown poles. Most companies cannot give them away for fear of a lawsuit if someone uses them to smoke meat and kills someone. But if you can catch the line crews pulling old poles near your place and tou can keep quiet where they came from they have a strange way of "appearing" on your farm.

when they changed them out here all I did was sign a waver. Now my son takes my trailer by the elec coop and buys a load for 10 bucks every couple of months. These are the ones that they had to replace and are usually broken . We just cut them to corner post lengths and burn the ragged ends. He has accumulated enough long ones to build a small barn

 

[John SD]

You would be surprised at the material you can hustle up,
when the county was tearing out the old wooden bridges I got the treated timber and post for clean up. After Rita I got a lifetime supply of broken telephone poles for corners.

My dad was a lineman, and used to get all the light poles he wanted. Come to find out, not all light poles are created equal. Some were junk, and will rot quick. Telephone poles, may be a different story.

Most of the older REA poles are only butt treated. And they have been replaced for a reason ;-)

As a kid I remember, but there is no such thing as telephone poles here now. Even back then, most telephone lines were piggybacked on the REA poles. Telephone went underground 40 years ago.

 

[John SD]

the good ones you can smell the creosote when you walk by it. It also help to cap it will bull (asphalt flashing cement) after its been cut

These are the best poles, a close second are the green salt treated. The worst ones are the newer brown poles. Most companies cannot give them away for fear of a lawsuit if someone uses them to smoke meat and kills someone. But if you can catch the line crews pulling old poles near your place and tou can keep quiet where they came from they have a strange way of "appearing" on your farm.

Line crews here will leave old poles free of charge if the landowner wants them. They do want the used poles moved out of their ROW in a timely fashion.

Usually can make 3 - 10 or 12 ft posts out of each. Put up some guardrail and supersteel windbreak with them here :idea:

 

[Caustic Burno]

The old poles here are from the 50's and 60's from LBJ's rural electrification program. Who ever did them knew how to cresote as 99%
are just as solid today as the day they were put in.
The new green poles they replace the broken ones with don't look like they will be here near as long.

 

[True Grit Farms]

These are the best poles that I've ever seen. They came from the RR trestle in Indian Town Fl. The worms ate a little at the mud -water line, but the 20' to 30' of pole drove into the mud is like brand new. And the trestle was built during WWII.
They sure don't make stuff like they use to.

 

[Nesikep]

You would be surprised at the material you can hustle up,
when the county was tearing out the old wooden bridges I got the treated timber and post for clean up. After Rita I got a lifetime supply of broken telephone poles for corners.

My dad was a lineman, and used to get all the light poles he wanted. Come to find out, not all light poles are created equal. Some were junk, and will rot quick. Telephone poles, may be a different story.

Most of the older REA poles are only butt treated. And they have been replaced for a reason ;-)

As a kid I remember, but there is no such thing as telephone poles here now. Even back then, most telephone lines were piggybacked on the REA poles. Telephone went underground 40 years ago.

It did here too, but about 20 years ago they went above ground again... every farmer along the road (including us) was digging them up, and they didn't have the capacity either.. Those were the party line days

 

[Dave]

A couple years ago they were replacing all the poles near me. I stopped and asked about the old poles. The crew foreman said he couldn't give them to me but if they were gone in the morning it wouldn't bother him one bit. I got about a dozen poles. I just hooked on to them with the tractor and drug them right down the road. Now they all have a little worn off on what was the back end of the pole. I would have got more but some other people beat me to some of them.

 

[John SD]

My dad was a lineman, and used to get all the light poles he wanted. Come to find out, not all light poles are created equal. Some were junk, and will rot quick. Telephone poles, may be a different story.

Most of the older REA poles are only butt treated. And they have been replaced for a reason ;-)

As a kid I remember, but there is no such thing as telephone poles here now. Even back then, most telephone lines were piggybacked on the REA poles. Telephone went underground 40 years ago.

It did here too, but about 20 years ago they went above ground again... every farmer along the road (including us) was digging them up, and they didn't have the capacity either.. Those were the party line days

Overhead line was the old party line here. Been private lines since underground went through in the early 70's. They came through and redone it again with newfangled fiber optic underground line about 10 years ago. Definitely don't want to dig up that stuff :shock:

The downside of the new phone system is it takes electricty to run it. During an extended power outage, the phone guys are kept busy nursing a bunch of little Honda portable generators at 30 some locations around the county to keep the phones working.

 

[1982vett]

These are the best poles that I've ever seen. They came from the RR trestle in Indian Town Fl. The worms ate a little at the mud -water line, but the 20' to 30' of pole drove into the mud is like brand new. And the trestle was built during WWII.
They sure don't make stuff like they use to.

I had a boundary fence of 4" creosote my Dad and his brothers put in in the mid 60's that I rebuilt in 2010. The wire was still good but the post were snapping off at the ground. The bottoms of the ones I pulled looked like they were put in the ground last year.

 

[arkie1]

I'm just now getting into the cattle business with my own herd. Brother has been doing it for a couple years now and I guess I've been his unhired hired hand. :lol: We don't come from a family that farms but both of us worked for a few farmers from grade school to college. The cost of getting into it is for sure high. Land, facilities, equipment, etc really start to add up, especially when you don't come from a family that is already established in it. You can't go borrow grandpa's tractor or run a few head on dad's land when your pastures start looking thin.

I started buying a few heifers here and there to run with his. I'd love to buy a piece of ground that joins him but you need three years of tax history to get a loan through FSA. I'm working on buying a small herd (20 head) from a gentleman that is selling out and wants to lease the land. I've run the numbers in a worse case scenario and it is painfully obvious that the profit will be slim at best. I work full time so right now it's a hobby I guess.

I guess we both do it because we love it. I think I enjoy the struggle somewhat. I know that we both want to build it into something that one day our kids can take over and maybe they won't have to struggle like we did to get started. The biggest obstacle where we are at is land. What's for sale is sky high on price and any leasable pasture is already leased. There are quite a few older guys around who are looking at getting out so hopefully if we are patient and bide our time some good opportunities will turn up.