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Corral Designs

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Tap

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We are going to put in some new construction corrals this year on a site that is bare at the moment. The plan is to build them out of 3 1/2 " by 17 foot treated poles, as this is in kind of a unique area, and it needs to look nice and be functional. We probably wouldn't have over 250 pairs in them at a time, but may build them a bit bigger for yearlings, etc. They would be calf shipping corrals, and we would run the cows thru them in the fall to preg test, and the usual things you do to a cow in the fall, but that is about it.

I am wondering if anyone has any good pictures or plans of good functional corral systems? How do you like tubs vs. straight alleys and such?

Here are a few pictures of a some good looking corrals that I liked. What do you think of them?

http://www.aranchbroker.com/images/TaborCreekRanch/DSC00483.JPG

http://www.aranchbroker.com/images/TaborCreekRanch/DSC00481.JPG

http://www.aranchbroker.com/images/TaborCreekRanch/100_0163_0053.JPG
 
Tap,

Looks like off your main alley you can go to Loading or working by opening or closing one gate. Good Start...

On the Sweep tub, I really like either a Center feed tub (No Dead end corner for cattle to ball up in) or a Classic Tub design that exits out the end....I prefer sheeted tubs...


On the Crowd Alley, a must for me is that the width is adjustable. That takes SO MUCH fight out of working cattle. I have sold some pretty inexpensive Adjustable alley bows that panels hook to and gotten better results than a lot of solid built alleys that aren't adjustable...

I also prefer a curved alley....On the sheeting, I have been doing something unique and the feedback has been fantastic. I go with one side of the Alley sheeted and the operator side 1/2 sheeted. This does several things. The Cattle aren't distracted by things on the off side. As the guy goes back to the end of an alley to move cattle up, thier attention is on him. Once he's at the shoulder they feed up the alley real well.

The other thing this alley design does is makes cattle accesable, gets rid of catwalk and cuts down on cost...Like I said, the feedback has been great.

If you were in my area, I could help you. I have also designed a pretty slick loadout for stock trailers for a guy in Courdalane Idaho....He sells registered Angus bulls and they go right in...

Good luck,

PPRM
 
I don't know where you are, but that may be relevant to what material is cost effective. If you can get to Stillwater Ok there is a good deal on 3/4" tubing and 1.4" tubing. I couldn't crowd my cows in 3 & 1/2" lodge poles, I think they'd make splinters and frustrated cowboys.

You talk about using wood but show pics in steel, but I guess the pics are for layout not materials. The first pic has a nice alley way for yearlings, but too small for cows. I like to use an alleyway to in and by sort. Cows just need more alley width. Cows also need a big pen - like if you built standard 200' X 150' pens, you'd want to be able to open gates between 2 or 3 pens for 300 cows if you had to stand them for a few days. A friend of mine has a big cow pen that empties downhill into the alley, and this works very well. Your big cow pen doesn't have to be crowd proof. For shipping pens, I like several 15' X 60' slanted pens that open on each end.


I like solid sided tubs for yearlings/calves, but I've learned from Sandhill cowboys that side by side double lanes work great for cows.

For a loadout I'd suggest 2 load alleys with a walkway in between. Frame your stemwalls, fill with grvel, and pour a 6"cap

I like those homemade freezeproof waterers the Canadians make in the calf pens, but for cow processing, I'd want a long water bunk and high volumn hydrant.
 
Make it out of portable until you decide how you like your set up. then you have the option of moving it around and changing things to fit.

CRS has some big, STOUT portable corrals. Check them out. they are nice as you have to use a loader to move them! No sore backs. :wink:

Paul S who used to run the salebarn, made his out of sucker rod. he's owned enough places that he kind of has a good set up i mind.

On a 250 head deal, you don't need a real big set up.

Maybe start with an alley and chute and then make the pens out of portable, until you get your set up the way you like it.

I like the looks of pole and wish all of mine was made out of it. It might not be as stout as metal, but you don't kill cattle when they hit it wrong either. Of course, your cattle are probably pretty tame, so that wouldn't be a problem.

Make your working chute and and loading chute, so they work together and all youy have to do is switch a gate, to use on or the other.

A guy down here has a tub with a gate that swings in the middle. all you have to do is go around and around.

Think of the places you neighbor with and how their set up works. Who has a good set up and why? Copy the good idea's and discard the bad.

I like all rounds and bends, then there are no corners for cattle to hang up in.

Alley's are nice for sorting calves and sexing calves and yearlings, but we've both helped strip a lot of cows off, to know that you don't have to have one for that job. :wink:
 
I've always thought this Hi-Hog rigging was _ok_, except they have no centre alleyway, and I'd want to change how they come out of the squeeze area so they couldn't double back into that narrow work space.

hi-hog.jpg


This is likely what I'm going to build around here. Too many sharp corners in that picture, so I'm going to double gate between each sorting pen, and round the corners off a bit. There is currently an alleyway feeding the backside (top of the picture) of the handling system, and my pens are all hung off this central alleyway.

future.jpg


Rod
 
Tap I don't really have anything to add to the design of your corrals but you mentioned you were building them with poles and wanted them to look nice. These pole corrals are near Buffalo, Wyoming and are the best looking ones I've seen in my travels.


hfbar2400.jpg
 
I don't seem to be able to load more than one picture at a time and this is another one of those corrals. Sure think they look purty the way they have them decorated up with the horses and mountains in the background :)


hfbar1400.jpg
 
When I was 14, I ordered a book from New Zealand called "One-Man Corral Systems". It's full of circular corral designs and all sorts of neat ideas for handling and loading. So, when I rebuilt our pasture corrals last year, I adapted one of those designs to fit our spot. It works quite well.

The outer ring is a 16' sorting alley, divided into 4 sections by partitions w/10' gates. At each partition is a gate entering the center round pen, which is the easiest way to sort calves from cows we've ever used. There are 3 entrances to the outer ring, 1 from our dugout, and 2 from other paddocks. The ring enters a post-and-rail crowding tub, which squeezes the cattle into our steel crowding tub, then into the alley.

The nicest part is that you can lay out a circular corral in a way that allows for expansion real easy. With ours we can just add more alleyways to the outer ring, using each to sort closer to the center.

I can probably fax some of the pages if you want to have a look.
 
Tap said:
We are going to put in some new construction corrals this year on a site that is bare at the moment. The plan is to build them out of 3 1/2 " by 17 foot treated poles, as this is in kind of a unique area, and it needs to look nice and be functional. We probably wouldn't have over 250 pairs in them at a time, but may build them a bit bigger for yearlings, etc. They would be calf shipping corrals, and we would run the cows thru them in the fall to preg test, and the usual things you do to a cow in the fall, but that is about it.

I am wondering if anyone has any good pictures or plans of good functional corral systems? How do you like tubs vs. straight alleys and such?

Here are a few pictures of a some good looking corrals that I liked. What do you think of them?

http://www.aranchbroker.com/images/TaborCreekRanch/DSC00483.JPG

http://www.aranchbroker.com/images/TaborCreekRanch/DSC00481.JPG

http://www.aranchbroker.com/images/TaborCreekRanch/100_0163_0053.JPG
Click to expand...


Not sure i'm getting it right......but 3 1/2 inch by 17 foot treated poles don't seem logical to me. Even if you bury them 6 foot that leaves 11 foot of a 3.5 inch pole sticking out of the ground. Don't seem like it would take much of a force to snap that puppy off. Not something I'd want to build a set of working pens out of, but like I said, I'm sure I'm over looking something on this......maybe your Canadian measurements are different....hell I dunno. I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong, but the only thing I can come up with is that the 3.5 inches is the radius not the diameter of these "poles".
 
PureCountry said:
Don't know if you're wrong Tibbs or if I am, but I had assumed they were meant to be rails, not posts; 3 or 4 of 'em hung horizontal-like.
Click to expand...

I bet your right....that makes a hell of a lot more sense. For some reason I just assumed "poles" were goin in the ground. Thanks for clearing that up :D :wink: :D
 
:lol2: :lol: :clap:


By the way tap, k_ranch is an excellent corral planner, will try to get him to put his 2 cents in later. :wink:
 
Faster horses said:
Careful there Tibbs. Someone will be riding off into the sunset again wearing your clothes and driving your pickup. :wink:
:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :nod:
Click to expand...

Now come on FH, don't giver him such a hard time, you know the poor boy was raised on that gumbo ground where they only have poor water to drink, It effects all of them that way. :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol:


:D

Just teasin' you TX. Don't send your relatives down to whup me. :shock:

:wink: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
A freind of mine built his Roundpens outta poles. He went over six foot high with the poles spaces like 3 inches apart. I think the poles were about 3 inches in diameter, as tight as they were they will last awhile.

The only thing is if you sell you can't take them nor can you change the design easily.....Plus, good panels apprciate, poles end up on the ground.....Guard Rail holds up pretty good if you can get it...

Someone said the affordability tends to be based on where you live, that is true....


Most panel companies have corral planners. Most have people that will take your design, draw it up on a computer and give you a materials list,


PPRM
 
DiamondSCattleCo said:
I've always thought this Hi-Hog rigging was _ok_, except they have no centre alleyway, and I'd want to change how they come out of the squeeze area so they couldn't double back into that narrow work space.

hi-hog.jpg


This is likely what I'm going to build around here. Too many sharp corners in that picture, so I'm going to double gate between each sorting pen, and round the corners off a bit. There is currently an alleyway feeding the backside (top of the picture) of the handling system, and my pens are all hung off this central alleyway.

future.jpg


Rod
Click to expand...

I was just wandering does this pie plan come in apple or lemmon :D cause either way I think it is edible :wink: :wink: . Hey Tibbs I am pretty sure tap is sinking them post holes by hand :lol: :lol:

have a good one

lazy ace
 
Come on Tibbs. Get with the program. Posts go in the ground, and poles get nailed on the posts. :wink: :lol: :roll: To everyone else, thanks for the pictures and the help. I really appreciated it. :lol:

I think we will probably use some kind of net wire for a large holding pen, then go to poles for the medium sized corrals and pens within the corral, then go to treated plank for the crowding areas. The plank is stronger, and is easier to make a gate latch to it than the poles are. This is going to be near a site along a hiway, that needs to look nice, and rustic looking too. We will use big powerline poles for posts (did I confuse you there again Tibbs) like the ones in Tumbleweeds pictures to hang the gates on in the main alley. These powerline poles were knocked down and free after our big spring snowstorm. See, some good can come from some bad after all. :roll:

I am open to more designs, and moral support too. :wink:
 
Well in my defense we don't build our corrals out of "poles" we use "planks" or guard rail or sucker rod but not poles.


Tap said:
Come on Tibbs. Get with the program. Posts go in the ground, and poles get nailed on the posts. :wink: :lol: :roll:
Click to expand...

Oh and Tap I found this....just thought I'd share :lol: :lol: 8) :p :lol:

"What is a pole barn?
Pole construction is building with poles that are embedded in the ground and used to support the walls, roof and floor framing (if any)."

Maybe they need to change the name of them to "Post Barns" huh Tap??? :wink: :p :lol: :D :eek: :shock: :)
 
Jinglebob said:
Faster horses said:
Careful there Tibbs. Someone will be riding off into the sunset again wearing your clothes and driving your pickup. :wink:
:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :nod:
Click to expand...

Now come on FH, don't giver him such a hard time, you know the poor boy was raised on that gumbo ground where they only have poor water to drink, It effects all of them that way. :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol:


:D

Just teasin' you TX. Don't send your relatives down to whup me. :shock:

:wink: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Click to expand...

Don't worry Jingle Bob I'll tell them to hold off on the whupping for now :p Although they were at Dennis' steak feed earlier this month and I believe you were to, so see they could whup you in the most least expected place!! haha :lol: :lol:

And there is nothing like Gumbo after an inch of rain! Especially when your walking through it and after 3 steps your feet weigh 50 lbs each!
 

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