Just lately I have been looking at cattle and sheep handling systems. I have been mainly looking at runs as a means of simplifying, easeing, and increasing effecientcy in handling. I was wondering if anyone would like to sharre their knowledge/experiences of handling systems of either sheep or cattle, including crushes, alleys, penning, scales/weighers, turn over crates, and so on. It would be interesting if there is any particularly good or unique, or even very bad systems if you are willing to share.

 

One system that I'm quite keen on is on this link: http://shepherdease.com/  (open the pdf file on this website).

 

Cheers, Arch. 

We have a few systems to choose from out here in NZ. Most are very expensive though. Here's a few websites of some of the companies we have. I know that Prattley export to the UK, but I'm not sure about the others...

http://www.prattley.co.nz/  http://www.hdaleengineering.co.nz/ http://www.racewell.co.nz/ http://www.technipharm.co.nz/ http://www.combiclamp.co.nz/ http://www.hecton.co.nz/

A friend of mine has the Technipharm supahandler 3000 and swears by it, but he has 8000 ewes, so can justify it's cost (about NZ$15,000 I think he paid). I know of big sheep stations that have the HDALE conveyor belt and seem to like them, but you need more like 20,000 ewes to justify the cost of those things! 

Sorry, those links didn't work properly. Here they are again...

http://www.prattley.co.nz/

 

http://www.hdaleengineering.co.nz/

 

http://www.racewell.co.nz/

 

http://www.technipharm.co.nz/

 

http://www.combiclamp.co.nz/

 

http://www.hecton.co.nz/

 

tractordriver99:

turn over crates,

WJB  Iron Works and Batemans do a sheep turnover crate that lets you do the following: Clamp. Turn over, Run right through and half swing out of line to facilitate dagging.

The facility to let the animals run through and the automatic head clamp are useful things some other crates don't have. The down side to this crate is that the legs of the sheep are not particularly well held and so rear leg kicking can be a problem.

On balance however, bearing in mind all the jobs you use the crate for. I favour this crate to any other.

I did write to Batemans to offer a couple of improvement suggestions but, despite a politie reminder, they couldn't be bothered to reply. I expect they were worried that I might claim any improvement ideas were mine. However I was just trying to help them, not enrich myself.

 

Thanks for all that, very helpful indeed.

 There has been a lot of talk about toys as i see them very little apart from the mention of prattley on the fundamental thing of getting the animals to your crate, crush or what ever else it is. Temple Grandin writes some interesting stuff on animal handling, she also has some good ideas on systems, even if it is mostly for cattle. http://www.templegrandin.com/ 

wee man:

There has been a lot of talk about toys as i see them very little apart from the mention of prattley on the fundamental thing of getting the animals to your crate, crush or what ever else it is.

I wouldn't call them toys - if you have a big operation I'd call them essential if you can save on labour units. With regard to the fundamental thing of getting the animals into your crate, etc, I'd suggest if you were considering a sheep handling system you should be a big enough operation to have some fancy permanent covered yards, otherwise then yes, you are just buying it for the 'toy' factor.

 

Partly through this thread I am having a good hard look at combi clamp. I have done my fair share of turning over sheep, shearing etc and as the years go by , joints, whole body  start to ache . I do like the look of the thing and  in the hope that when, I finally decide to call it a day, I still have a body capable of enjoying itself.

I am a sole operator with fair dogs . Will sheep run into it well given that you have to stand in front of their flight zone to operate the thing. . I have roll over crates and a dagging box, but I usually have to move back past them to get the sheep to enter. Combi clamp has no door on exit  and relies on a simultaneous catch so you cant leave the foot plate -  see  where I am coming from- its not exactly cheap so I have to be sure it works. If there was a door they would ofcourse be reluctant to run.

I have watched the vids on the nz site and it looks fantastic but those sheep would be well used to it I guess, and it is a promotional video.  I use a prattley as my my main yard set up and run Romneys

Anyone in NZ, or UK come to that, who can give me the low down? 

I saw the combiclamp demonstrated at Sheep 2006 and don't remember anyone being behind the sheep to push them on. I would have said a good set of dogs would suffice, particularly as the lack of end gate would entice the wooly blighters through - getting out is a sheep's favourite past time as we all know! If you were worried about this it may be possible to erect a small holding pen immediately after to retain 10 or 12 so any escapees could be fetched back?

Jonathan Long, FW Livestock Editor,

I use a Prattley system which although is very expensive it has proven to be a good investment. It can be thrown about with ease. I move my system frequently as I have sheep scattered around at different holdings so this works well. If I was considering a handling system in a static situation then I would go for a steel set up like Modulamb (i have some of this too) as it is cheaper. The best thing about Prattley is it is so light my wife can lift it off the truck and set it up. sheep minder

 

Does anyone have an opinion on weather to have curved races or straight for both sheep and cattle? I have never used curved races for sheep. But with cattle I have seen some very mixed results. One place with very quiet cows they hated the curved race, I think the curve was to tight for them, but they where very easy to move up the straight race in the other yards. On another farm mad steers straight from the Australian bush ran perfectly up the curved race.  

 

Double or single races for sheep? In the UK a lot of people use single races for drenching yet in New Zealand every sheep yard had a double race, anyone know the reason for this.