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Western WY | I'm getting ready to start building my hydraulic squeeze chute. I had about decided to do a tapered chute with a live bottom like the Silencers have, but now I'm leaning more toward a parallel. The parallel would be easier to teach one of my kids to run, being that it's only one lever versus two, and you don't have to judge how close is too close at the bottom.
The only reason I can see a possible advantage with the tapered chute is the cradling effect if a cow wants to go down. But I'm not sure this holds any water considering that my current manual chute is tapered, and doesn't seem to help the cow or calf stay up. The best thing I ever did to my chute was add a brisket bar. I think the tapered chute is worse on making the cow want to go down because she can't find her feet with them being pushed together.
Thoughts based on experience? For what it's worth, I'm using a parallel/curtain style head catch versus the scissor type. I absolutely hate it when the animals feel like they have to launch out of the chute because the head catch is too close at the bottom. Either that or they have to stumble out. | |
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Parallel vs. tapered squeeze chute
