Working alley width?

[SBMF 2015]

I'm going to build some alley bows out of 2" x2" box steel 1/4" wall.
The plan is to make them 7' high and 36" wide so I can slide a 2" pipe gate in on each side to create the alley. That should make the working width of the alley 32". This should make a working alley that is easy to break down and move by myself.
Is 32" the best across the board width for an alley? Every size from mature herd bulls to month old calves and everything in between gets worked on pasture in the spring/summer.

 

[kenny thomas]

Everything I have seen says 28" is the best

 

[Rafter S]

28" is best. I wouldn't do 32". That extra 4" may not sound like much until you have a big calf or small cow turn around and come to meet you when you're following it to close the trailer gate.

 

[kenny thomas]

28" is best. I wouldn't do 32". That extra 4" may not sound like much until you have a big calf or small cow turn around and come to meet you when you're following it to close the trailer gate.

Or get half turned around and gets down and stuck

 

[bird dog]

3/16 wall would be more than sufficient especially if you are going to move it around. With 1/4" wall they are going to be over 100 lbs each.

 

[76 Bar]

28" is the golden rule.

Or get half turned around and gets down and stuck

My alley is way too wide and correcting it isn't an option in the foreseeable future. Which is precisely why I requested hot shot recommendations in a prior post. Big calves and smaller cows/yearlings standing on their heads or worse ain't a pretty sight and is an emergency situation.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Thanks guys. I went and measured what we have already built. Our main working alley is 28" wide. On another farm we have a corral and more of a loading alley that is 34". Going to build the new bows 32" so the final inside width will be 28"

 

[SBMF 2015]

3/16 wall would be more than sufficient especially if you are going to move it around. With 1/4" wall they are going to be over 100 lbs each.

I have a bad habit of building things way to heavy. We have a local junk yard that gets rejected seconds out of a steel mill in St. Louis. I get 2"x2"x1/4" wall box steel for fifty cents a pound.
I built our main working facility the alley is 20' long. It's made up of 4 -10' panels. They weight 310lbs apiece. When I was younger and dumber I used to pick them up and move them by hand. We used to move it from pasture to pasture in the spring to work pairs. Now we work the pairs before they go to grass most of the time.

 

[greggy]

I dunno if you have sheep, but I run younger calves through my sheep yards, they can turn around in mature cattle width is my very limited exp, so I would put some gates to stop them if under pressure if in a normal size width...we use cm, so not sure of your width...

 

[Ky hills]

I would make it to the narrower recommendation. Ours is wider and like others have said larger calves and yearling can turn around. When one gets to turning and can't and goes down it's a mess. Small calves are a plum fiasco. Unfortunately our head chute doesn't accommodate small calves well either so working them is not an easy venture.

 

[gcreekrch]

Posts on our alley are 30 inches apart inside. The planks we lined it with are rough sawn full 2 inch thickness.
Ton plus bulls can get through it so I guess wide enough for us. When working weaners we crowd them in and can swing the loading chute gate across the alley to contain them. Most times I get right in with them and my wife or a crew member hands me vaccine guns.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Nice cat walk, it's so much easier to alley vaccinate on a cat walk. We had a very similar set up at the sale barn. The only real problem is when you get a cow flipped over on her back. The alley is to narrow for them to roll. They are just stuck, four legs up in the air. The only way to get them out is to use a tractor and drag them out on their back. It's that or cut the alley apart.

 

[gcreekrch]

Nice cat walk, it's so much easier to alley vaccinate on a cat walk. We had a very similar set up at the sale barn. The only real problem is when you get a cow flipped over on her back. The alley is to narrow for them to roll. They are just stuck, four legs up in the air. The only way to get them out is to use a tractor and drag them out on their back. It's that or cut the alley apart.

Thanks, my son built the triangles for the walk.

Hope you haven't jinxed us. Have only had one bull ever flop over on his back in 40 years.

 

[Rafter S]

Nice cat walk, it's so much easier to alley vaccinate on a cat walk. We had a very similar set up at the sale barn. The only real problem is when you get a cow flipped over on her back. The alley is to narrow for them to roll. They are just stuck, four legs up in the air. The only way to get them out is to use a tractor and drag them out on their back. It's that or cut the alley apart.

My father managed a medium-sized ranch here decades ago and we had small alleys just for vaccinating calves. I don't remember the dimensions but they were too narrow for the calves to turn around, and you could stand on the ground and reach over the side to vaccinate and ear tag them.

 

[simme]

Ultimate flexibility is an adjustable alley. My brother has this one from the tub/sweep to the squeeze chute. Adjustable from 16 to 30 inches.
https://www.siouxsteel.com/explore-our-products/livestock-equipment/working-equipment/alleys-crowding-tubs/adjustable-alleys