Info on handling facilities

Ebenezer · #1 07/22/10, 12:26 PM

Any of you have experience on the widths, heights, gates, turn tables, etc for me? I am interested in building a portable system and am wondering if an adjustable width race is good or just adjust the bottom width? Do you use the higher sided races (36" +/-)? Do you need a headgate if you have a tilt table? Does your tilt table give you good access to both sides of the sheep? If you have a tilt table and a scale, would you have a section of race between them? Any other pointers like the diameter and gage of the steel tubing? Would you use round or square tubing?

leon · #2 07/23/10, 08:30 PM

May be this will help: http://www.premier1supplies.com/list...icle&cat_id=18 (download the pdf diagram). I have no personal expirience with their system but generally they know what they're talking about.

sheepish · #3 07/24/10, 06:13 AM

Our handling area has sloping sides, giving the sheep less room for their feet and making it harder to turn around. The working side is about 2 feet high, the other is the 4 foot high side of an existing pen. We can swap the tilt table or the scale into one end of the run, past a guillotine gate.

Here are another couple of ideas:http://www.ontariosheep.org/Intro%20...20Handling.pdf, http://www.cps.gov.on.ca/english/frameindex.htm.
Follow the second one through download plans, to the sheep plans.

Ebenezer · #4 07/26/10, 10:58 AM

Thank you for the comments and links. I noticed that the working chute width on the Canadian plans was 18". If you could build it anyway you wanted, would you make the chute bottom witdh to be adjustable and also make the sides where they can also move in and out from vertical to sloped?

Is a 30" high side high enough for moderate sized sheep?

sheepish · #5 07/27/10, 06:16 AM

It depends on what you want to do with the chute.

We lean over ours to work the sheep, read tags, sort, vaccinate, etc. For that, short is better. Adults never jump the walls. Lambs sometimes do, but the area beside the chute where we walk is enclosed behind and at both ends, so it is a simple matter to get them back in.

We find that short is the only way to access sheep, especially lambs that drop down and might get smothered by other sheep while waiting in the run. This is an important factor if you are using your run for lambs as well as sheep.

The more you run animals through the chutes, especially with a good outcome for them at the end, the less they will try to escape, and the better they will behave in the chute.

You asked earlier about turn tables. We only use ours for adults. It is not good for lambs and it is much more efficient to vaccinate and do other procedures from within the chute.