# planning on changing the design of my corral



## scots7882

Hello, I am looking to restructure my corral. I have 40 head of cows with calves. I was wondering if you all had any good experience on designs of corrals for 40 head? Any low cost savings tips? Any tips on building for easy handling? I'm planning to use hedge posts, cattle panels, and 2x6's for my holding pens. Any tips on cheap "Cow Carpet" for the corral to keep cows/calves/me from wallering in the mud.

any ideas/tips are greatly appreciated


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## Nitram

Cow carpet!!! Concrete!!! For handling Check out utube 'bud boxes' they are the cats meow. I did hedge posts with sucker rod threaded thru them. HTH.


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## cornshucker

If you have a local source for used highway guard rails, bolting them to cross ties makes a good stout long lasting corral.


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## Chessiedog

I made a " bud box " last year worked great for me .


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## hog987

Have a waterer or a feed bunk somewhere in a pen the cattle are used to going into. Have this funnel into the corrals. The hardest part of working cattle is getting them into the corrals. Once there they can be worked easliy in most systems.


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## ARD Farm

For our feedlot op, we use high tensile fencing on insulated standoff's and keep it well jucied. A wet nose on a hot-hot wire changes minds in a flash.


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## rjmoses

Tip I learned a while back: Get a 5 gal bucket of exterior grade oil-based primer, dip your posts (even pressure treated ones) in it up to your dirt line, drain and let dry overnight. Your posts will last 2-3 times longer.

Ralph


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## ARD Farm

Thats not a bad idea actually. I've had 40 retention posts rot off.


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## Tim/South

Build as many sorting pens off of the main corral as you can.

We built a loading lane on the side of our main corral. A good set up really takes to worry out of working cattle. A smooth working cattle pen makes life much easier on the cattle and the humans.

40 momma cows is a big enough herd to justify the investment in building something nice.

Our pen is made of heavy duty panels. I studied all the designs I could find online from the different universities. Even then it was tough to figure out what would work the best for our situation.


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## eam77

You say "hedge posts, cattle panels, 2x6's".

There are "cattle panels" available that are much heavier, a full 5 feet tall. They now cost about $50/each.

To me, the only way to build a corral is with steel pipe set in 12" diameter, 30" depth concrete, the above heavy-duty panels, and a good bit of 1" sucker rod. The corral should be at least 5-1/2 feet tall.

In the crowding areas, the heavy-duty panel should be reinforced with 1" sucker rod, about 3 or 4 " in front of the panel, at about mid-(cow)hip height. Gates are also a problem, as you will find almost all commercial gates too light for corral duty. I'm building gates now--- 12 footers that weight about 140#.

I built a wood corral 40 years ago...... pretty good for 20 years, iffy for the next ten years. The steel corrals I have built since should go 50 years. But even better that the longevity, they work so smooth......... no sag, no drag, no escapes, little physical exposure to the occasional wild/mean cow. Use sweeps to get the cows in line for loading or working. The best information sources I have found are the examples in the Peifert and Powder River catalogs.


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## Colby

Our main set of pens is all pipe with a big hydraulic squeeze chute and barns.

Just some tips, the less corners for cattle to bunch up in, the better. Also put up something solid either plywood or 4x4x8 sheet metal on gates and pinch points going into gates. Cattle won't hit solid objects like that and it's easier for them to see the hole and get them moving in the right direction faster. 
I would also say, if possible make the chute out of pipe and add cut gates in there. The pens can be made out of wood cause they won't take a beating like the chute will.


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## carcajou

I just built a new corral system and used it for the 1st time today. Everything is 5' high all the way around and i think i'll go up another plank in the main working area. I will have to add a foot to a couple gates also. I used solid planking for the loading alley and loading chute this time and it worked very well. Some of the yearlings kicked the pipe gates so i'm going to try Colby's idea and put some plywood on a couple and see if it helps. Every corner is on a 45 degree angle except one gate and that was the only place it stopped the flow. Overall it worked very well and was well worth the effort.


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## Colby

Putting up plywood to keep them from kicking at the cut gates probably isn't going to stop them but it's still a good idea to put something up as it will help with forward movement and will keep calfs and cows from getting their back feet hung up in it if they do kick it. Cattle are to expensive to have mistakes like this happen now a days. 
Also I recommend lining the shoot with ply wood to keep cows from kicking out and hitting you standing on the outside. 
Just remember when building pens that cattle don't see the same as you. They see out the sides. You see directly ahead. So when you make solid walls going into entry ways they just see it better and move easier.

This is just my observations... Our cattle are a lot different than some of y'all's crazy northern farmer cows I call them lol.


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## JMT

Make a way to sort coming out of the working chute. We accidentally ended up with the ability to sort three ways out of our chute. Has ended up being one of our favorite features of our system.

We also made ours 6 foot. Extra tall, keeps cows from even trying to jump. A crazy cow can clear (not cleanly) a 5ft corral.

Lime is good to use to keep mud under control. It is cheap, packs down hard, gives good footing, and goes through the manure spreader when cleaning pens.

Under the alley way and working chute I would use concrete. Worth the extra $.

I would also recommend making your corral bigger than your herd size. Room to expand and extra pens can be priceless.


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## BrangusFeeder

The lane leading up to the corral is worth it. I can single-handedly round up the herd and walk them down the lane and shut the gate on em before they know what's up. You don't need horses or a 4-wheeler or a team, just regular cube feeding to train them to follow you.

Then the best thing about my corral is it's basically a series of bud boxes closed by gates. The cows automatically go up the channel then go straight to get out / into trailer or left to go into the chute. The chute exits back into the corral and I wish this was a third area that could go back to corral or out.

The worst thing about my corral is that the chute is a hard left and every single cow stops at this point and wants to back up instead of going left. It's too sharp a turn and causes huge problems of jumping and trying to turn around. I took this picture cuz planning to move the angle and round out this area. I've got the vet coming in a couple weeks and am going to try putting a tarp over the right hand side so they will look left more until I can fix this. The other thing I'm going to do us put some work tables as no where to put pen and paper and clippers other than the ground.


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## deadmoose

Gotta love the Dodge in the background.


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## Kaen3e

I just redid mine with a experiment. After playing with cows and horses all my life I could never figure out why horses are worked in a round pen and cows really weren't. So I made a round sorting area with a y running on the inside. one gate at the top of the corral at small end of y for a return or release. And another gate opposite end of circle dumping into another pasture. So there Are multiple chances at dumping animals. Just loaded calves on Labor Day. Granted the critters I have AREN'T range cattle. It took 10minutes to sort 3 calves out and load bull. Road mix with a slight grade out here works well


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## Supa Dexta

Just got done an over haul on mine. This was during the build, But finally ran a group of 30 weaned calves thru it yesterday to try it. Worked well, few tweaks to do, then more calves get a crack at it. Ive since poured cement and set the headgate up in the middle there. Only had so much space to work with between the bank and the road, hence the turn in the race, but it works. Holding pen out on the far end held thirty 600+ lb'ers no problem.


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## Supa Dexta

updated pic today, Still need some fill on the right hand side to level it up.


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