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silencer chute

gcreekrch said:
and Debbie caught 200, kept the books AND still made a great supper on Sunday. :D
Click to expand...

See, that's the difference... we women know you use the self-head catch, leave a little squeeze on so you don't constantly mess with it, and only have to work the back gate to get the job done :wink: :P . Working the chute is my favorite job, and my best help ALWAYS works the back :wink: :D .
 
We just finished using the silencer to ultrasound a bunch of exposed females. We took the attitude to use it as it was shipped and if the hydraulic pack blows up then we go from there. It didn't. We figured out our 2 problems. One was the automatic transmission fluid used as the hydraulic fluid is thick at 32 F or 0 C and if we let the electric motor and hydraulic pack run for 30 minutes before using it the electrical draw is way down and everything works better! For real cold weather use we will have to use a magnetic block heater on the side of the hydraulic tank before letting the pump run. I am surprised that 32 F is cold enough to effect the ATF, thats not cold at all, but it did effect the performance when cold.
The second is a hydraulic valve is letting some fluid by thereby reducing some of our flow for use. We dont think it is much but it does effect its punch, it might just be sticking. Its the value that lifts the chute so the scale works. Once it is set in position and squeeze is suspended off the floor we dont have to touch it again until we lift to clean manure from under it at end of day. We will tackle fixing that tomorrow.

I was taught if i have to eat crow it's best to do so when they are young and more tender.

I am happy with how the squeeze worked and everyone (especially the vet) loved it. The neck extender bars worked great to control the head when new mgmt tags are put in or dehorning. Quite safe. We hand wanded the rfid tags and correlated them with new mgmt tag numbers and scale weights. All this we can dump into an excel spreadsheet to rank individual cow performance next year. (of course we have to follow this up with tagging calves at birth) I cant wait until next year to see which cows bring home the biggest % of their body weight.

I would recommend Silencer add an option of installation when you purchase the squeeze. I would have gladly paid $1000 if some would have come and helped us for a day - set it up and trouble shoot the setup and knowing what to expect. There just shouldnt be the hastle of getting bugs out when you buy new equipment. I shouldnt be surprised but always am.

We ended up with 10% opens in our cows and 15% in our heifers on a 60 day exposure.

:)
 
Glad you got it working, Strange the oil is so thick. I have never added oil to my chute in 10 years.It runs good right from the start in the coldest weather. When it is real cold I usually start it and cycle through the functions a couple times but it seems to be quick enough.
 
I got my first ( and only ) chute about 40 years ago and before that we worked a bunch with a gate hinged to the barn wall and a 2X4 to go in behind and a chain to keep the tension on the gate.

I sure would hate to go back to that but it worked!

If I was about 20 years younger I might be talked into up grading but cows, calves, bulls all together I only run about 50 head thru each year and I've kind of gotten used to the way we are doing it. I do think I'm going to rework the palpation gate and make it easier.
 

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