kenny thomas
Well-known member
Your doing great it seems. Buy what will work for you. I pull a lot of trailers a lot of miles but still have trouble with a bumper hitch.
Need working facility
- Thread starter TNtrout23
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There's nothing wrong with having nice new or newer equipment. There's also nothing wrong with having older equipment that functions well enough to suit you, everyones situation is different. People seem to go nuts arguing about it though.
As far as working facilities go if I didn't have the time to build a set of pipe corrals I'd go with the free standing setup posted above. They're reasonably priced will last a lifetime and can be moved or sold when you can get a permanent set built. I'd find a decent priced used chute if only using it a few times a year too.
As far as working facilities go if I didn't have the time to build a set of pipe corrals I'd go with the free standing setup posted above. They're reasonably priced will last a lifetime and can be moved or sold when you can get a permanent set built. I'd find a decent priced used chute if only using it a few times a year too.
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
I did it for years.
Check at the barn always been someone that hauls.
I was going anyway.
TNtrout23
Well-known member
I have looked into the free standing sets before. I just never heard of them called drill stem. I've been looking around for a squeeze chute and alley way with the sliding doors now. I drive by a few farms while I'm at work and decided to stop by one of them yesterday and asked him to look at his setup and he was more than happy to show me. The alley way he had looked nice. He had 20' of alley way with a gate at the beginning of the first 10' and the 2nd 10' then into his squeeze chute. Said those gates in the alley way are the best thing since sliced bread. He also had a really nice sweep tub. I think it was a W&W. He also had several corral panels in his set up but had feedlot panel/wire on top of them. He said son you've got to love messing with cattle to enjoy doing it. But said in his 60 years he wouldn't ever change his mind
Sweeps are expensive. You can do the same thing with a bud box or modified bud box for less.
Dave
Well-known member
They can be. But I bought mine at a equipment auction for $800. It was new. You just need to take your time and search. I bought a chute with a crowd alley. Turned around and sold the chute for more than I had paid so I had a crowd alley for free. The only expensive thing in my set up was the squeeze chute. I went through several used chutes. But sell for more than I paid and up grade until I finally bought a new one.
In all my years, I have never met anyone that regretted the money they spent on working facilities. Whether you build it or buy it, make sure it is of good quality heavy materials. You can not over-build one. Build or buy one 7' or 7'6" tall. I have built facilities out of cross ties and rough cut lumber. Have built them out of drill pipe and sucker rods or cable, and I have bought heavy duty panels built for rodeo arenas. One works just as good as another. I have caught cattle for people who used pressure treated 4 x4 or 6 x6, and pressure treated 2x 8's. I have caught cattle for people who bought the light weight portable panels you use for round pens to work horses. One guy we caught for had used these extreme light weight panels made out of conduit. You can carry 2 or 3 at a time, and I have enough to make a 50 x 100 arena, but I would NOT use them for working cattle. This dude balked at the price I gave him for catching his. ( $200 an hour for 2 people and 2 horses, from the time I leave my barn til I load my horses at your place). I told him by the time he has hired me 3 times, he could have built or bought a heavy duty facility. Look at what the pens are made of and how they are built at your local sale barn, and do it like that if you can. It will last you a lifetime, and more.
Travlr
Well-known member
Speaking of working facilities... Have any of you seen any built with vertical uprights instead of the typical horizontals between posts? I've never seen any built that way but I've heard there are advantages. I think it was Temple Grandin that suggested cattle are more likely to be calm because upright barriers are more natural... and I was also thinking that an animal is less likely to climb out since they have less to get ahold of. I've seen enough wild ones climb gates. I suppose it would be quite a bit more difficult to build... but I've always wondered.
Time = $
$800 is still expensive for 6 head. You can likely get the same results with a gate or 2.
SBMF 2015
Well-known member
$800 is less than most people's health insurance deductible.
We all know how fast an okay situation can turn into a really bad emergency.
I don't see how a sweep is that much safer other than maybe having some kickback protection, if it has it.
SBMF 2015
Well-known member
Once they're in there they aren't getting out.
The vet I used to work for was crowding a 6wt hfr with a gate to load her in the alley. The hfr decided to stick her head under the gate and lifted it off the hinges. She flipped the gate and the vet. Broke some vertebrae in his neck. He now has a titanium rod permanently in his neck.
We used to load semis of fats through a tub. Taking smaller drafts can be a pain but once the door is shut they don't have a choice. And you're not in with them.
bird dog
Well-known member
TNTrout, Drill stem is a catch all term for oil field pipe. Its usually 2 3/8 or 2 /7/8. Its almost always used pipe of various quality determined by how it was used. A lot of the pipe called drill stem was never used as as true drill stem. More often than not it was used to transport oil or other liquids or to line a well. Some of it is radioactive. A lot of it has a nasty inside coated with suphur. A lot of it from a pump jack will have thin spots where sucker rod rubbed up against it. Its kind of a buyer beware item.
Its a pain to work with a lot of times. I hate it. My pens are made from light weight square tubing and wire panels. Much faster and easier to work with. No coping required. Square tubing with a wire panel is actually very strong as the wire acts like chord members of a truss. A cow may get her front legs on top of it, but since it won't bend, she won't get her back end over. My gates are made to fit schedule 10 handrail pipe. There are always exceptions for real wild cattle and some young bramans can jump like a deer, but I don't deal with those type so my pens work fine. Caustic's pens where you can always keep a gate between you and the cattle is essential at least in your alley ways.
Its a pain to work with a lot of times. I hate it. My pens are made from light weight square tubing and wire panels. Much faster and easier to work with. No coping required. Square tubing with a wire panel is actually very strong as the wire acts like chord members of a truss. A cow may get her front legs on top of it, but since it won't bend, she won't get her back end over. My gates are made to fit schedule 10 handrail pipe. There are always exceptions for real wild cattle and some young bramans can jump like a deer, but I don't deal with those type so my pens work fine. Caustic's pens where you can always keep a gate between you and the cattle is essential at least in your alley ways.
That's not the same kind of deal. You can buy gates in alley bowes where you close the compartments down cheaper than a sweep. They can't do all that with those panel.
With 6 head they should pretty much just walk down the chute with some guidance. The calves may need a little coercion but if either are wiley it's cheaper to get rid of them then buy beefed up facilities.
wbvs58
Well-known member
Some good advice on working facilities being given here. To go with the new facilities, introducing the cattle to the facilities from a young age and training them so they know what is expected of them goes a long way to helping make what you have work. Put them through a few times just to weigh them or not do anything to them and a bit of feed at the other end helps keep the pressure off your facilities.
Ken
Ken
SBMF 2015
Well-known member
Yes, but you've still got to get in with them.
I agree 6 head should be easy. Follow a bucket anywhere kinda cattle.
But livestock experience is everything. You or I can probably work cattle with wire panels and baling wire and get away with it. While others need extra safe set ups to make it safe for them.
I try to have everything at my main set up tall enough and heavy enough to work groups of mature bulls and not have them tear up stuff and have it safe. It makes working cows and calves easy, because they don't even try to fight. They just go through the process like it's no big deal.
I agree with every thing you are saying I just don't think you are picturing what I am describing, which may be my fault.
But, yes. If the OP is more comfortable with a sweep get it don't worry about the money. I was just trying to say there are other options that work just as good.
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
I built my 2nd sweep tub last winter for less than $800 in materials, terrific investment.
JJColvin
Well-known member
After 35 years in the drilling industry drill stem are tubulars designed and milled for the specific purpose of composing a part of a drill string. Also known as drill pipe. Most land drillers utilize 4-1/2" and 3-1/2" pipe, on occasion for particular well operations 2-7/8" drill pipe is utilized. Offshore drilling rigs utilize 5-1/2" pipe mostly. There is very little used drill stem on the market. Most pipe is used production tubing. 2-7/8, 2-3/8", 1-1/2", and 1". There is a difference in how tubing and pipe is designated.
Thanks for the info. I've always wondered why 2-7/8 and 2-3/8 is called used drill stem or pipe but on rigs you generally see bigger pipe. What is the 2-7/8 or 3/8 production tubing used for? Drawing the oil out?
