Taking Cattle Handling to a New Level With the Turret Gate

[shaney]

The way that feedyard owners handle cattle has a massive impact on gains and the overall health of the animal. Many of you have used the snake and tub concept originally designed by Temple Grandin (i think?) When I was at the NCBA convention I ran into a very cool booth that was giving live demonstrations of their new cattle handling technology system. Not only is the Turret gate easy on the animal but it also can be operated by one employee with a remote control. From what I saw, not only is the [URL="http://www.turretgate.com/"]Turret Gate[/URL] safe for the cattle but also for the operator.

I love talking to entrepreneurs that have invented something at tradeshows. You can just feel the passion for the product during the interview. Watch the video and see what I mean. It is hard to argue with a lot of the concepts presented with Moly Manufacturing in this video.

<a href="http://realagriculture.com/category/farm-shows/ncba11/">SEE MORE NCBA 2011 COVERAGE</a>

If you cannot see the below interview showcasing how the Turret gate works then <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdHRiAqrl8Q">click here</a>.

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[Happytrails]

Pretty sweet setup for processing cattle. Looks like something that should be in a packing plant. The part that might work at my place is the crowd alley starting out double and then going single. It should work with a Bud box. HT

[wd40]

Just a bit of correction on who designed the tub and snake. It was built many years before Temple was born.

[shaney]

Thanks for the correction. I wasn't sure about it.

[kato]

That's pretty slick.

I wonder how long the remote batteries last when it's 30 below. :-0

[skip]

Nice video thanks.

[wd40]

Not wanting to rain on anybody’s parade, I'll point out a couple of concerns with this Silencer system.
The gate it’s self looks quite nifty and resourceful, however..

The cattle entering the tub basically have to do a 180 degree turn to enter the alley system. In other words they have to look back over themselves to see where the cowboy wants them to go. Cattle slow down in confusion because their escape route is not real obvious, thus needing more aggressive pressure to convince them to move along forward.

Cowboys are notorious (at least the young ones) for cowboying/strong arming the cattle to where they don’t want to go. I think it will be too easy to just push the button and basically push/force the cattle into the alley. Especially at the end of a day of processing!

A tube alley system can be designed to pretty much flow cattle through without fight or stress. Been there done that.

A comment on the “snake” alley! It’s an over-glorified straight alley and provides no improvement over the straight. The point is cattle should not be able to see the end but always around a corner.