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High End Hydraulic Chute

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PPRM

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
1,998
Location
NE Oregon
I have been selling a lot of Hydraulic Chutes that were designed to fit the needs and budget of most Cow-Calf Guys. I am looking at starting to design a higher end Chute. Part of this is the feedback I have been getting where a lot of Larger ranches are willling to spend the money on something heavier with more features....

In the past, I have seen some of these and have refereed guys to them that wnated something more than I had to offer....And I have a lot of end user experience with hydraulics from the feedlots I have worked in..

So, I am looking for feedback....What features do you folks like????

Part of where am now is to maybe develop one that has a base price and then optional features. Some Optional Add-ons might be a Brisket Bar, Hydraulic Mugger and Swing around/adjustable mount for the Controls........Anytime I work on something Like this, do have to keep in mind that features need to be in a buyable price range.....

So, what are your thots???


PPRM
 
First off, make sure that the dimensions are not centered around a 1100lb steer like the Silencers. One option that we must have on any chute that we buy is that BOTH sides will swing open. The control lever must be hinged where it will swing back and forth. If I was buying a new one today for the breeding barn, I would proably look at having the palp doors set on an arm. Maybe have a steel stop where they cannot swing to the outside of the chute and then the hydraulic arm will swing them to the inseide. That way once you catch the cow you can hit one lever, load the gun and walk right to the cow, it would save 2 or 3 steps per cow and that adds up with 100 in a day. Hope this works well for you
 
Is the rotary headgate off patent protetion yet? I use a silencer and like the rotary headgate.

I don't understand what Angus Breeder means about Silencer being centered arround an 1100# steer.

Heavier is always better

I first saw the brisket bar a year ago up at THedford at Pearson, later I saw silencer has one. Who innovated it? Probably some tough olf feedlot cowboy got tired of restanding cattle.


What is a mugger, is that the neck bar that swings to hold the head?
 
I like what Angus said about both sides swing open that would help. We don't have one, I dream of having one, that would be nice. We welded a place to hang irons on our PRiver. What you should ask people is not what they like but what they hate about the chute they have. That will give you more ideas I can't tell you one thing we need on a chute, but I can give you a list of what hasn't worked!!!!!!!!!
 
A chute that is made around an 1100lb steer will not work on 2000lb donor cows or even 1500-1700lb brood cows. The openings to give shots thru are packed with extra fat that has been bunched up and makes it hard to get a syringe to the correct place. One other thing that I forgot to mention the chute must have blinders on it PERIOD.
 
2000 pound cow? Good gracious, my bulls barely weigh that much for most of the year... I would think that a chute that holds a 2000 pound cow comfortably would be a little spacious to handle tour 250 pound calf coming in for a round of shots.. Of course, this is why we have two squeezes now, a small one that is great for open cows and calves and the big one which is great for heavy preg cows, normal cows and bulls...
 
The Silencer is the best chute out there for feedlot use. They are almost built to heavy to be the best ranch chute but they still work good for every thing that we do (200lb calves to 2500lb bulls). The chute needs the hydraulic sliding bottom to do the small calves.
 
IL Rancher if you will notice in my fiirst post I specified that this would be for the breeding barn. There is no perfect chute out there for everything that needs to be run through.
 
Angus Breeder said:
A chute that is made around an 1100lb steer will not work on 2000lb donor cows or even 1500-1700lb brood cows. The openings to give shots thru are packed with extra fat that has been bunched up and makes it hard to get a syringe to the correct place. One other thing that I forgot to mention the chute must have blinders on it PERIOD.
Click to expand...

2000# donor cows??????

1500-1700 # brood cows????????


What bloodlines are these cows I don't want any so please tell me.So do you feel you are doing the commercial cattleman justice by produceing cattle of this type...
 
Brad S,

The Mugger is a Hydraulic arm that holds the animals head. I have a vet with one and he never uses it. The Hydraulic Chute I have sold has neck extenders on it. They add maybe $100.00 to the price of a chute. I was very skeptical at first, but amazed at the difference. Not only couldn't the calves throw heads side to side or windmill, but they couldn't throw them up and down....These are adjustable in and out, or can be taken off if you are running horned hereford bulls and afraid to popp a horn off....That being said, perception is everything...So I think it needs an optional Mugger for the guys who aren't convinced the Neck Extenders work.

The Brisket bar is something I wouldn't want, but a lot of fans of them out there. I have found with the Neck Extenders, i don't have calves laying down. It just holds them that much better...But again, perception is everything in selling.....

Adjustable bottoms are hugely important to accomodate different sized cattle..

Angus Breeder. I have seen chutes with a single side exit. we use them almost exclusively for emergency situations. I find letting them out the side tends to make it harder to get them into the headgate next time. What are you doing that requires two side exits?

A hydraulic operated palp cage door, that is something I never would have thought of...


On the headgate, I need to look at the rotaries more. Thing is, I have run a Silencer at our Vets. I never paid attaention to the headgate, so i don't know if it was rotary and I didn't notice or it wasn't...

The headgate on the Chute I sell now is a little unique. It is a Scissors style, but the Pivots at the Bottom are mounted to the Chute Sides. So if the Chute is adjusted out for Big bellied Cows, the Pivots also move out. That way they don't hang up at all on the way out of the chute. I ran some cows that wieghed 1700-1750#'s last October thru one. One calved the next day, so she was way pregnant....A ton of room wiith that design...

Thanks for the feedback, I look forward to anymore,

PPRM
 
At least ten feet long so a cow can walk in and get a bar behind her without catching her head-brisket bars work very well-A'I'ed my forst cattle in chutes with them this year worked great-a sliding door behind the palp cage comes in pretty handy also.
 
The silencer chute comes in a couple of different sizes. Their extended modle can easliy hadle mature bulls. I think the design of the scilencer is hard to beat. They have done a lot of things right.

I first worked a silencer in the early 90's. Cows were able to drop down and kneel after they were caught. They have since fixed that and have made other significant improvements. It does have a rotary head gate, I think they are much harder to build, but cattle exit out of the chute easier and they are less likely to choke in a rotary head gait. I like the convience of having a hydralic floor that narrows up with a lever, but I think that adds signifcant cost, I agree it should be at least adjustable mannually on both sides. It also is nice to have both sides open up.

I personally like to be in conrol of my own palpcage door rather than trust a kid who is new with the controls. The best of both worlds is a double system with something I can latch when I walk in to the palp cage and when I am done I can exit and close the door. Then the chute man can open up the second door when he wants.

The silencer does not have that because it doesn't have a palp cage, just a door in the chute.

That is one of the first decisions you will have to make is whether you want a palp cage separate or a door in the chute.
 
Coulee,

Not only do you understand chutes, you realize extra's cost....Any Hydraulic Add-on adds about $1700 to the price of a chute. Be it a Mugger, Adjustable bottom or any other accessory.

What did Silencer do that stopped cows from Dropping down????


One side benefit of the headgate pivots mounted to the Chute sides is that as you adjust it for the width of cattle, the straiht up and down of the stanchions is maintained so they are less apt to choke down...

Out of Colege, I worked for a 20,000 head feedlot and we used C&S Chutes. i have also used some Silencers and Powder Rivers (old and the new Rancher). I have been around Salt Creek (Made in Lakeview Oregon) and Stampede....All have thier good points

Going back to cost, my idea is there is a base model and then things like Live Bottoms, Positionable control handles, Muggers, Brisket bar and Blinders are optional accesories.....Wallet size and opinions vary on these accessories, so that is the best approach in my mind,

PPRM
 
I use the adjustable bottom on the Silencer to hold a critter up if they want to lay down, not too common. Good footing also helps. Good point about the neck extenders holding calves up. We only use the hydraulic neck bar on cows, like if a horn scur needs cut back. I don't know how we ever got along without louvers, are they under patent? All chutes could stand a retrofit.


I have a cobbled up military box bolted to the chute side near the back that I put a notebook computer in. I wish I could innovate a sexier device to hold the pc. If I scrape my shoulder after cutting bulls on the pc box another couple hundred times, I'll think of something.

I've wished for a foot switch that would reset the headgate, tailgate, and sidesqueeze back to open (like a press brake foot switch), but then I remember using the man powered chutes and am happy with levers.
 
Been reading the post.I have to say i probally sell as many if not more silencers than any one in the USA or Canada.They are a pretty good chute but the name sells it .Just like fords diesel pickup years ago it had a international diesel motor and they didn,t sell to great when some one came up with the name power stroke it sold like hot cakes chevy with the duramax also.What sell the silencer for me is we don,t charge any freight anywhere in the USA or Canada.No one else can touch that.But here this I also sell lots of the C&S hydraulic chutes and some of them also use to own a silencer and for the last 5 years they say the C&S they like better and it is as quiet as the silencer and has all the options loovers live floor neck bars and neck pusher to .Look at he sizzor model we have 4 of them on our different ranches and we love them.We also have the rotor with neck pusher and the new roller headgate it will let rinos go through it opens wider than any chute on the market.I talked to the boys at JR Simplot ranch and feedlot in Idaho they like the C&S 2 to one over the silencer.All they have is the sizzor c&S.
Monfort has several c&S and a silencer and the help fights to see who will use the c&S the help don,t like the silencer they have.Its like this some people buy a chevy some people buy a Cadallac .If i was making some i would look at the c& s to make ajustments to.I you get going let me know I might be interested in moving several for you also some economy units to smaller herd producers.
Thanks Charlie
[email protected]
www.midamericalivestockequipment.com
 
Charlie, I'm old enough to remember when C&S pretty much owned the hydraulic chute market and Mollhagens were nobodys. In time, 25 years, C&S went bankrupt and Moly developed Silencer and took over the chute biz. Silencer makes a great chute and is even better at customer support - great and innovative products sells Silencer not their name.

I use a 15 year old Silencer, and its been great. I have neighbors that process at my house to use my chute that have a decent chute at home. I saw J Mollhagen at Denver several years ago and mentioned a couple problems my chute had - he insisted I bring it by the shop for a repair/tuneup. They only charged $250 and that included a retrofit on luvers.

I'd never say Silencer is the only good chute, but I can't see cowboys fighting to use a chute that tried real hard to copy Silencer instead of the real thing.
 

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