pics of our latest project

Ever since we took over this little cattle operation about a year ago we have had dreams of rebuilding the corral and making things easier for one person to work with the cows. The old corral was 34 years old and in serious need of updating. My friend nick knew he would have time off at the end of August so we had been planning this for awhile. Lots and lots of drawings and measuring, making changes and drawings and measuring again, went on before we even started.
The center piece to the entire plan. A new Stronghold tub. Tried to purchase a used one on a auction but it brought more than I paid for this new one and I couldnt get a For-most quick enough. A trip to quick Carthage and I had a tub and alley so we could begin.



We needed some big post and I was lucky enough to get in touch with the local REA coop and get used light poles for $15 a piece and we could pick the ones we wanted. Had to cut them in half to haul, one was 40 feet.


Talked about alot of different options for the fence. Ended up going with treated 2x8's cause it makes such a nice looking fence and is easy to modify. This is almost half of the boards we would need. No going to big box store, the local lumberyard was within $.07 per board in price so I was able buy close to home.


More supplies. Gates from TSC and some high priced post from the Farm King store.


Hard to believe it takes this much stuff to build fence! Well, that was most of it anyway.


The official post hole digging tractor. It is hard to comprehend the work involved when fence was put in by hand. Those guys knew what is was to work.


I'm not sure what the bottom 9 foot of a light pole weighs but its alot!


The finished project. Its not fancy, its not perfect and it cost quite a bit to get it done but if it keeps someone from getting hurt and we can save the occasional cow or calf because we can handle them so much easier then it will be bargin and well worth the time, effort and money.










There is about 75 feet of board fence in the lot so we can crowd them to the outside and get them in the pens. The first pen is 12x36. The second pen is 10x20. The chute in the pictures is our portable chute but we will actually set the other chute in as it has the automatic headgate and hopefully that will allow this whole thing to be a one man operation at calving time. The way it is now if we need to catch a cow and calf it takes at least two of us and that isnt very handy sometimes. We will be able to sort them off into the first pen, down the alley to load out or just back into the lot, and we will be able to send them to the barn straight from the chute and back from the barn into the pens without them going into the lots. I'll let you know how this works out!
We will put the finishing touches on it tomorrow, labor day, how ironic. Nick will go back to his office job at CAT on tuesday. After working two weeks of tweleve hour days on the farm for free he might be looking forward to it. Myself along with travis and cliff will begin to prepare for the coming harvest. Bins to clean and equipemnt to get serviced and ready to roll. We did have some really nice weather to work in and several people would stop in and check on our progress as we went along. Its always good to have supervision! A good job is done at last.

Last but certainly not least, wrigley says hey!


He enjoys the cattle just as much as I do.

bill

Great pics, Thanks for sharing.

Adrian

Thanks for the pictures. You did things in the right order--planning, drawing then doing. It is cheap and easy to make changes while planning. I'm retired now. Almost 35 years ago we built a coral. Not as large as yours, but the same idea. It made all the difference in the world working beef cattle. We were all AI for several years. I did most of the tech work, but my wife and all three children took the training and did some of the work. Always enjoy your pictures.

Nice pics,--- tell Wrigley we said hey back.
What is hanging in front of that one building fly repellent? I'm guessing
at one time I remember neighbor had a "rubbing rope" had tick repellent impregnated in it.

That is a good looking system. You will think it is the best time ever spent this winter when you need to doctor something and it takes you 15 minutes instead of two hours. I've never met anyone who was sorry for spending the time (and money) to build a good working system.

Very nice system you have there! You should be proud of all your hard work. Like others have said, you'll never regret spending that money or putting in the time to have a system like that in place when working with the cattle. I updated our corrals (nothing as nice as yours!) a few years ago and it really made things easier for us. Be careful, or you just might find yourself having fun working cows instead of being miserable like you're supposed to be! (just kidding)

Looks good! I wish we would have had that system back in our cow days. Looks like there's plenty of mud on the post auger.Jim

Sounds like you have good friends! Good looking system. Never really by yourself while Wrigley is around.

Gene

Bill-looks nice! If I knew how to post pics like you young guys, I'd post pics of our latest project that we finished yesterday-- a 30X36 cattle shed along with sorting corral. We also used utility poles for the shed and the fence--the shed poles were 17'long by 12 inches diameter and they were HEAVY-we used a crane attachment on a big skid.

Did everything ourselves-the dirtwork, the concrete, built the shed and built the lot. Even tore down the old shed we replaced. I have pics of it all if I was smart enough (read that willing to learn) to post them.

We ended up with 2 skid buckets piled full of tools to haul back to the shop--makes your pickup look empty! Took 3 hrs to clean up all the tools and mess!

The project totally consumed us for three weeks, and now, like you, we need to concentrate on preparing for harvest.

Nice pics!

Great pics!!

Very nice!

Saw someone the other day whose been milling his own lumber for an upcoming project with a portable bandsaw mill.

He's started to get the remains of pressure treated poles -- I assume after they commit suicide by jumping out into the road in front of oncoming automobiles. Cutting those up for deck boards. Probably not hard to get 16' good feet out of destroyed pole, just wear a mask while cutting.

Very nice job, Bill. I see that you got your tub from Bergman's in Carthage. They are good people to deal with. I bought my pressure washer from them and would do so again. Where do you live from Carthage? I'm about 55 miles due west of there. Mike

You'll like the tub, one of the best things I've bought.

That be one hell of a corral, sir! :shock:

Looks good. We did a corral rebuild a couple years back. You'll like that tub. We used metal continuous fence, because we seemed to always be replacing boards in our wooden fences. These new ones bend a bit if you crowd hard enough, but they don't break. Here are some pics of ours.

Crowding alley that leads to the tub

Loading chute started

Overall view
David

Y"all did a good job on your corral.

Lots of work involved in building a corral.

Thanks for sharing your "work in progress" with us.

Be sure to pet Wrigley on the head for me and tell him he"s a good dog.