skulling gate / restrainig pen

joedes

I have a calving pen with a heavy duty field gate (11 ft.) hanging off the front of the pen. I want to cut in a skulling gate so I can hold a cow there if I need to. I have an 8 ft. light gate that will be used to keep her tight to the wall and I want that to be hung off of the 11 ft. as well.

So I'm looking for some crafty ideas of how to:
1 - cut in and design the skulling gate on the 11 ft. gate - on the post side which is bolted onto the wall. This will not be a skulling gate that open out and lets her through but one that just holds her head and I can back her out of it when finished.
2 - hang the light 8 ft gate off the same gate so I can close her in to the wall. Not worried about a back gate as the back wall is pretty tight tot eh end of the gates.

Sounds tricky, but I know it will be very useful and safe to operate. I just have no tech skills and need to explain the idea to my welder.

Joe - Westfarm Galway

reilig

joedes wrote: »

I have a calving pen with a heavy duty field gate (11 ft.) hanging off the front of the pen. I want to cut in a skulling gate so I can hold a cow there if I need to. I have an 8 ft. light gate that will be used to keep her tight to the wall and I want that to be hung off of the 11 ft. as well.

So I'm looking for some crafty ideas of how to:
1 - cut in and design the skulling gate on the 11 ft. gate - on the post side which is bolted onto the wall. This will not be a skulling gate that open out and lets her through but one that just holds her head and I can back her out of it when finished.
2 - hang the light 8 ft gate off the same gate so I can close her in to the wall. Not worried about a back gate as the back wall is pretty tight tot eh end of the gates.

Sounds tricky, but I know it will be very useful and safe to operate. I just have no tech skills and need to explain the idea to my welder.

Joe - Westfarm Galway

I have a calving gate in my calving pens which has the design that you are looking for (I think). You won't need a backgate if you just hang a chain off the wall and have a catch on the 8ft gate which will hold the chain in place and prevent her backing back.

http://www.odonovaneng.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/3in1calfgate-on-white.JPG

The one above is quite similar to mine except instead of having the centre folding out of the gate, I have a 7ft gate which can be hung non either side of the gate and be used to hold the cow against the wall.

Here's a link to another gate also:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/built2lastgalway/5317126528/

leg wax

i would not put in any of those gates if it was me and the reason being as i found out with that system in my friends new shed and that gate, he had a cow that got upset when she started to calve she would not let us in the pen, how can you get a cross cow into skulling gate with the small little gate you cant, you have to go off and get a longer gate and corral her into the skulling gate.o donavans made up my system for me,the head lock is concreted into the floor into two pipes so i can remove everthing if i need to, off either side of the head lock i have a gate,one leaves the cows in and out of the pen, the other is for forceing the cow into the head lock with out anyone haveing to enter the pen the gate is between the cow and i, when the cow is faceing the head lock i close the forceing gate by bolting it to the wall, at this stage the cow is standing between the two parallel gates she can only walk forwardinto head lock. the forceing gate is the section /suckling gate the made it longer for me.

what happen

think carefully you will need plenty of space behind cow to be able to use a calving jack if a calf is coming backways.leg wax is right not easy when trying to work a mad cow .

vanderbadger

when making your pen you might be as well get a semi auto skulling gate, attach one side of skulling gate to shed wall, use a hanging post at the other side of skulling gate, one of the ones you can take gate on and off from. you can hang a normal gate here to finish or close off pen, when you want to catch cow you can swing this gate inwards making the pen smaller and so guide her towards crush gate.