New crush

Juniorhurler

Right, I'll try to describe this as best I can.

I want to put up a new crush and pen on an out farm. I want to make it about 90' long by 30' wide divided into 3 sections. Area for cattle to be collected, crush in the middle and area for cattle to be held after leaving the crush.

Heres the thing, I have enough ESB poles to do the crush and maybe the 4 corner posts for the pens. I also have a good bit of scaffolding about the place. Would uprights for scaffolding, planted in 2.5-3' of concrete, with one every 8' do for the holding pens? I think they should, what do ye all think?

Muckit

Sounds like a great idea J hurler ....'Reduce Reuse Recycle'

What do you plan to use for the bars or horizontal members? Are you making the gates or buying HD ones?

Bizzum

Juniorhurler wrote: »

I also have a good bit of scaffolding about the place. Would uprights for scaffolding, planted in 2.5-3' of concrete, with one every 8' do for the holding pens? I think they should, what do ye all think?

It would be my opinion they would not be up to the task, if they are the same scaffolding tubes I'm thinking of.

Juniorhurler

Muckit wrote: »

Sounds like a great idea J hurler ....'Reduce Reuse Recycle'

What do you plan to use for the bars or horizontal members? Are you making the gates or buying HD ones?

The horizontals will be the 8' ledgers from scaffolding and I am making the gates from this as well.

Juniorhurler

Bizzum wrote: »

It would be my opinion they would not be up to the task, if they are the same scaffolding tubes I'm thinking of.

You could be right Bizzum, but I hope your wrong. The uprights from kwikstage scaffolding are the ones I am going using. You know the ones with the 4 fixing lugs every foot or so?

Bizzum

Juniorhurler wrote: »

You could be right Bizzum, but I hope your wrong. The uprights from kwikstage scaffolding are the ones I am going using. You know the ones with the 4 fixing lugs every foot or so?

They're the one's I had in mind alright. I hope for your sake I'm wrong too. I couldn't see them being good enough though. For all the few extra few uprights it would take, I'd be going heavy duty. Do it once and do it right!

A few sleepers would be a good job.

pakalasa

I'd agree with Bizzum, do a right job. Well worth it in the long term. Those scaffoldings are way too light. Use either railway girders set in concrete or cut ESB poles packed in with gravel. Concrete on the ESB poles will only help rot them. If using railway girders, run a strip of concrete too for the width of the crush. It will hold everything together. Those railway girders are so heavy, they'll take forever to rust. Use the ESB poles then for the enclosure.
I made a smilar crush and pen a few years back and I am very happy with it.

Juniorhurler

pakalasa wrote: »

I'd agree with Bizzum, do a right job. Well worth it in the long term. Those scaffoldings are way too light. Use either railway girders set in concrete or cut ESB poles packed in with gravel. Concrete on the ESB poles will only help rot them. If using railway girders, run a strip of concrete too for the width of the crush. It will hold everything together. Those railway girders are so heavy, they'll take forever to rust. Use the ESB poles then for the enclosure.
I made a smilar crush and pen a few years back and I am very happy with it.

I'll drive the ESB poles with the post driver. Handier than packing with gravel. Those railway girders are hard got around here now. If I could get them at any sort of handy money I'd have them in a heartbeat.

1chippy

The lugs on the standards wouldnt be a great job if an animal got over excited. The transoms bend pretty easy too. i used the scaffold tube used for propping though to but an extra rail over the feed barrier in the pens in the slats. hasnt been tested yet. were taming them too well.

Juniorhurler

1chippy wrote: »

The lugs on the standards wouldnt be a great job if an animal got over excited. The transoms bend pretty easy too. i used the scaffold tube used for propping though to but an extra rail over the feed barrier in the pens in the slats. hasnt been tested yet. were taming them too well.

Ya meant to say that, I'd cut the lugs off. Don't know how to test this before going to the effort of all the work. Thing is if a roll of white tape can keep our stock in I reckon a set up like this has a good chance of doing it.

Charlie Charolais

add another 8ft at an angle for extra support.
put them in at 4fts centres,with plenty horizontal rails

vanderbadger

has anyone ever used crash barriers to make up a pen, saw one from the road one day and thought it looked a great job, would be easy bolt them onto your esb poles but probably add a nice bit of expense onto you, ive seen them for sale on donedeal the odd time

leg wax

the cheapest pen i saw put up was made from free tyres,you know the real big ones from terex dumpers and industrial loaders stacked 3 high and filled with clay down the center.:cool:

lakill Farm

railway girders cut into 8/9ft lenghts are €27 each (incl of vat)
Crash barrier sections (12-14ft) are €28.50 each(incl of vat)

You can claim back the vat on a cattle crush. These prices were right about a month ago. One based in Roscommon the other longford.

Timmyboy

Apologies for jumping aboard this thread but I'm also about to start the construction of a new crush.

It's at an old farm that has effectively not been run for the last 15 years or so. There's no existing crush and I need to get a crush, along with other works to get the DoA to give me the herd number that I need.

When "Railway Girder" is mentioned, do you mean the actual Railway track or the part that is used to hold one track onto another?

If it's the track then I think that's a great idea as they are in place on an existing shed on the farm, probably built about 60 years ago and still straight and sound and whatever iron they were making back then is nothing like some of the iron that they do be making nowadays.

Some details on my own crush and the ideas that I have for it....
1. There's a main farm passage at the bottom of a generally square type old yard.
2. Then turn off right from the main farm passage leads to a short driveway that leads uphill passing 3 buildings on the right (a holding unit, milking parlour (old style) and the hay barn. On the left hand side of the drive is a relatively straight row of trees and brambles (being cleared away along with old rusty fencing at the moment)
3. At the top of that drive is a gate leading to a field. Before you come to the gate you can turn right and be above the hay barn and then if you continue you go around the hay barn to the right again and come back down the area that is on the far side of the buildings. There could be a way made from their down onto the main farm passage but at the moment there's a bit of a drop due to the main farm passage having being cut into the hill side a bit more on that side.

Anyway the idea for cattle handling and crush, parts of what I was asked by the DoA to provide is generally as follows.
1. Put railing along side of the left hand side of the drive, opposite the buildings and let that be a guide along with a couple of gates at the bottom so that cattle can be taken off the passage and brought upward along the drive.
2. But double dates on either side, at the gable ends of the 3 bay hay shed and rail up the other side by attaching tubular steel someow (??? not really sure how now)
3. Arrange to allow cattle to go out of the gate at the top of the drive and put the crush outside of the yard (since the yard is very small). Have a forcing area and the crush on the upper side of the trees that are opposite the hay barn.
4. Then cattle come back through a gap in the ditch from the crush into the yard for holding or recirculating.

I'm not sure if this will work but I'd sure appreciate any ideas or comments or questions.:D

Muckit

leg wax wrote: »

the cheapest pen i saw put up was made from free tyres,you know the real big ones from terex dumpers and industrial loaders stacked 3 high and filled with clay down the center.:cool:

Grand for ye big farmers, us small farmers couldn't afford to loose a bog garden to the width of those tyres!! I do like the idea though