Building A Cattle Squeeze Chute

My friend Rick, the same guy who remodeled the farm house after I purchased it, drove up to spend a week with me and build a squeeze chute for the cattle. We placed it in an aisle on the east side of the barn:

We found a gigantic 2x12 board up in the hay loft, hauled it downstairs and bolted it to the concrete floor:

Then we attached 2x4s to it and also to the ceiling:

The cows were afraid of this new person in their barn and refused to come inside, even for grain. While I missed my training/bonding time with them, I began to truly appreciate this turn of events when I discovered that they weren't even coming in at night and I had no manure to clean up in the morning:

There was sawdust everywhere, not to mention tools, extension cords, bolts, nails and lumber:

The squeeze chute itself was sided with 3/4" plywood and had a heavy duty headlock gate at the far end (you can see it on the bottom left). In this photo, we'd placed only one of the plywood sheets and Rick was attaching boards over the windows to prevent a catastrophe should a cow get panicky:

Leading up to the actual squeeze chute, the aisle-way was lined with 2x6s which were heavily braced, reinforced and bolted with large bolts. The sidewalls went to a height of 60", in accordance with the Cooperative Extension specifications:

Two Extension specialists had kindly made a visit to see my Red Polls and give me guidance on the construction of the squeeze chute. The width between the plywood sheets was 28" since my cattle were smaller than some other breeds:

We hung a 10' steel gate inside the cattle's lounging area and I plan to use it to slowly herd them into the aisle which leads to the squeeze chute. All this will take slow training, getting the easily frightened cattle used to the routine:

When it was all done, we cleaned everything up, taking particular care to sweep up any hardware which the cattle might accidentally eat or lie on:

This is the headlock gate. After they are released from it, the cows can travel forward and then swing around into their familiar lounging area:

I removed the tie stalls next to the squeeze chute and placed a raised sheet of plywood to assist the vet who might need to reach in to vaccinate the cows. I'm still not sure how to do all this and every bit of it is a learning experience for me. The next step will be training the cows to use it and then getting the two open (not pregnant) cows artificially inseminated:

The Evolution Of Tie Stalls

If you've been following this blog, you know that I've devoted a lot of time and money into getting my old barn cleaned and fixed up. I finally got it almost ready for the cattle, but there were no stanchions or stalls and the old gutters had no outlet and were too close for cow comfort anyway. So more work needed to be done:

So the first order of business was to get a load of fine gravel with which to mix concrete:

I filled the gutters about two thirds full of gravel:

Once both sides were filled and tamped down, it was time to mix concrete:

We spent a sunny Sunday mixing concrete. Steve mixed and I hauled it into the barn, dumped it and troweled it:

It was a slow, laborious process:

But by the end of the day, we had made the barn floor usable and easier to clean. I hope to be able to drive the tractor down through, pushing the manure with the bucket:

And then the welder began removing some old pipes from places where they would not be used:


He removed pipes from the old tie stalls and from the former watering system. His plan was to fashion the old pipes into new ties stalls:


He fashioned dividers back at his shop and brought them to the barn:

Then he attached them, installed cross members and safely affixed the old support columns:

He made and installed two more support columns for extra safety and from which to hang two farm gates. These gates will keep the cattle in their own part of the barn. We finished on a Sunday afternoon and that was not a moment too soon because the cattle were due to arrive the following morning. But I'll post about that tomorrow: