Hands on activities including a morning session focused on corral design and use is just one of the features participants will experience during Stockmanship & Stewardship, being hosted at the OARDC Eastern Agricultural Research Station in Caldwell on September 29 and 30, 2023.
Corral planning: The goal is to develop a design that accommodates your cattle working needs while making safe and efficient use of available labor and reducing stress and bruising of animals. An inexpensive working facility can be built in the corner of an existing barn or lot. Regardless of size or type of operation, there are six basic sections in a well-designed working facility.
- Holding pens
- Alley from pens to working area
- Crowding pen/tub
- Working alley
- Restraining area/squeeze chute
- Loading area
Holding pens: Keys to good holding-pen design are having enough pens to meet your needs, having them of sufficient size so animals cannot get past you, and having an easy animal flow to and from the working area. More than one pen will probably be needed so that you can sort cattle into groups. Allow 20 square feet for each cow and 14 square feet for each calf.
Smaller pens may be needed as hospital pens and to quarantine newly arrived animals. Ideally, provide a source of water and shade in one of the holding pens as a sick or quarantine area.
Alley From Pens to Working Area: Alleys should be 10 to 12 feet in width. Wide alleys can be like large pens and allow cattle to escape past you. Narrow alleys, less than 10 feet, may force animals to come through you, rather than go around you, if their desire to escape is great. Also, put some thought into gate placement and on which side to hinge gates.
EDITOR’s NOTE: Hands on activities including the effective design and use of the corral and handling system will be just one of the features participants can experience during Stockmanship & Stewardship, being hosted at the OARDC Eastern Agricultural Research Station in Caldwell on September 29 and 30, 2023. Stockmanship & Stewardship is a unique two-day educational experience featuring low-stress cattle handling demonstrations, Beef Quality Assurance educational sessions, facility design sessions to best run your operation and industry updates you won’t find anywhere else. Learn from stockmanship experts Curt Pate and Ron Gill and get BQA certified!
Source : osu.edu