IluvABbeef
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2006
- Messages
- 3,630
- Reaction score
- 0
Funny thing about chutes/races is that you have to have them designed to fit the animals that you primarily run through.
Not by width measurements, but by the design: C, S, or straight.
Now, lately, I've learned something from a fella who has a Phd in Agriculture (no offence to any of you on here) and manages a number of research stations run by the U of Alta: the U of A farm, and the Kinsella Ranch. It was the latter that me and a bus-load of colleagues where touring for a project we're to be working on throughout the school semester.
Anyway, the dryer stuff past, let me get to the point. The man who was leading us undergrads on the tour of the ~7000 acre ranch, Dr. Barry Irving, was asked about the facilities he had there. He said that everything that they had made and bought work fine, except for the S-curved chute (C-curve I'm convinced is the same way).
"It ain't worth it, especially if your running calves through. It works fine for cows, because they can look over the top to see where they're going, but with calves....only if you get a guy behind them on the outside shunting them through all the time will it work."
The problem was that the calves can't see where they're going. They're vision is to the side, but when there's curves, they stop because thier vision is blocked, and then there's a big holdup of calves and someone has to go in with a paddle or cane (or even a hotshot, if it gets to that) to get them moving.
So out of all that, for calves, the best race or chute that will help with smoother handling of calves is a straight race or chute.
Apparentely, it's ironic for me because here are all these universities that put all this money in to research in proper handling facilities for cattle, and it comes out as almost literally worthless, especially like someone said on a previous post on the Begginer's board about this same topic, you try and make or buy one of the Grandin- or university-reccommended facilities and you go broke (whoops, went off topic here), and that these U's highly reccommend curved chutes. And here's someone with a PhD that doesn't reccommend curved chutes (for calves, anyway). He's fine with the crowding tubs (just so long as you don't put in too many animals at a time), but as for chutes....funny thing, ain't it?
On a side note, the Kinsella Ranch runs about 250 head of Angus cow/calf pairs, as well as other more "minor'' breeds: char, simm, herf, galloway, holstein and brown swiss. The cattle see the facilities twice a year, (once in the spring and once in the fall, is my hunch), so the range calves that have never seen facilities before, I guess having the proper handling facilities is cruical.
Sorry it got so long. But it's something worth sharing, that's for sure.
Not by width measurements, but by the design: C, S, or straight.
Now, lately, I've learned something from a fella who has a Phd in Agriculture (no offence to any of you on here) and manages a number of research stations run by the U of Alta: the U of A farm, and the Kinsella Ranch. It was the latter that me and a bus-load of colleagues where touring for a project we're to be working on throughout the school semester.
Anyway, the dryer stuff past, let me get to the point. The man who was leading us undergrads on the tour of the ~7000 acre ranch, Dr. Barry Irving, was asked about the facilities he had there. He said that everything that they had made and bought work fine, except for the S-curved chute (C-curve I'm convinced is the same way).
"It ain't worth it, especially if your running calves through. It works fine for cows, because they can look over the top to see where they're going, but with calves....only if you get a guy behind them on the outside shunting them through all the time will it work."
The problem was that the calves can't see where they're going. They're vision is to the side, but when there's curves, they stop because thier vision is blocked, and then there's a big holdup of calves and someone has to go in with a paddle or cane (or even a hotshot, if it gets to that) to get them moving.
So out of all that, for calves, the best race or chute that will help with smoother handling of calves is a straight race or chute.
Apparentely, it's ironic for me because here are all these universities that put all this money in to research in proper handling facilities for cattle, and it comes out as almost literally worthless, especially like someone said on a previous post on the Begginer's board about this same topic, you try and make or buy one of the Grandin- or university-reccommended facilities and you go broke (whoops, went off topic here), and that these U's highly reccommend curved chutes. And here's someone with a PhD that doesn't reccommend curved chutes (for calves, anyway). He's fine with the crowding tubs (just so long as you don't put in too many animals at a time), but as for chutes....funny thing, ain't it?
On a side note, the Kinsella Ranch runs about 250 head of Angus cow/calf pairs, as well as other more "minor'' breeds: char, simm, herf, galloway, holstein and brown swiss. The cattle see the facilities twice a year, (once in the spring and once in the fall, is my hunch), so the range calves that have never seen facilities before, I guess having the proper handling facilities is cruical.
Sorry it got so long. But it's something worth sharing, that's for sure.
