Cattle Chutes

Anyone use any brand that they would recommend? I am looking at some locally,on Craigslist, and the brands vary, as do the manual or auto head gate option. I have heard some brands are hand/finger pinchers. Would like to avoid those!

I would be using it for AI breeding heifers and cows, and de-horning some larger feeders. Maybe 12-16 animals a year, for me personally, and then a close friend of mine would borrow it and run about 125/150 head a year through it.

Of course i am looking for an affordable one and all, since I am looking at used ones. But, some new Tartar ones are only about $2k new; I do not know if they are junk or not. I mean, there must be reason they are cheaper?

I appreciate any opinions or comments,as I have honestly never used one before.

Thank you.
 
Red R., IMO Get a permanent chute. About 1985 my relatives bought a Trojan Hydraulic chute it was at least 20 yrs old then, Trojan had taken it in on trade from a Feed lot when they sold them a new one. Seems we bought it for that $2K money, Trojan has renovated it and it was ready for us to pour a concrete slab and wire it up and go to running cattle through it.
We were using a Big, Heavy, Power River chute, A good one but it just beat the operator up through the coarse of a Days work!
I would,t buy a portable chute under any circumstances, At all!
Hope this helps.
Later,
John A.
 

I have a portable chute with a built on palpation cage that I gave $500 for that works for my small herd. It was built in a FFA shop off of W-W blueprints. W-W or Powder River make good chutes and I'm sure there are others. IMHO a self catching headgate is the only way to go. Some of the older chutes head gates are cow killers.
 
If you've got the money, the hydraulic chutes are the way to go. My vet has one that is one of the finest pieces of equipment I've ever seen. 'About $24,000.00 worth of "fine". It's nice!
Sounds to me like your good friend neighbor should be the one buying it with you doing the "borrowing".
 
I've had a Big Valley MX for 10 years or more. Self catching headlock,powder coated,nice outfit. The only complaint I have with that one is that the latches on the tip downs are kind of short. I had a big bull in there once that really got it rocking and a couple of those latches slipped up and let the bars tip down. Under normal conditions,they're OK. I think on the new MV-1 chutes they've fixed that.

You mention Tarter. There's a place right down the road from them called Green River Gate that makes the same line of products that they do. I stopped in at the factory and looked at their chutes before I bought this Big Valley. The only reason I bought the Big Valley was price and delivery,but from what I've had here in the Green River product line,just between you and me and the lamp post,I'd take their stuff over Tarters.
 
I bought a Priefert chute three years ago from Mills Fleet Farm for around $1800. Works very nice. I think it has the model 91 auto headgate. Makes it a one man job.
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I have a Priefert gate only like the one pictured mounted on a homemade chute, no squeeze feature. I haven't used it enough to get the automatic feature working, but it works fine manually. I have it set up so I release the calves through the front of the gate and have panels set up to send them back to the pen. Except for that, the pen and chutes are permanent, oak wood outside the barn, hickory inside. The homemade chute the gate is attached to is plenty strong, I modified it by putting in a floor and welding some additions to the sides. I have never liked the idea of having the squeeze chute with no floor, seems like you would have to install posts in the ground to fasten the chute to. Notice the commercial ones have floors.

I did look at other gates before getting the Priefert.

KEH
 
Thanks everybody for the replies and opinions; I really appreciate it.

This has all given me food for thought.

My "good friend" mentioned in this discussion just had someone come up and trim some hooves on some beef cows of his, last week. He was telling me about the hydraulics and electric motor tethers on the hoof trimming chute the hoof trimming fellow brought with him; Cadillac of chutes it sounded like. He was told it cost the fellow $28K, used. A new one was about $45K.

That is alot of hooves to trim!

Thanks again, everyone.
 
...there are a lot of hooves out there to be trimmed. Reminds me of a farrier that came out to look at a baler I had for sale. Told him I trim dairy cows. He said" can you make a living doing that" Hello, We are in Wisconsin aren't we.
 

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