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NE Ohio | Congratulations on an excellent investment. A google search will yield various results from universities and manufacturers. From our experience the old school principle is most useful - take cattle where they want to go. We have the best results setting up our portable tub/alley/chute in an area between pastures. Get them hungry so they want to get to the pasture on the other side. In your case it may be feeding them in one of your pens for a few days to a week so they are used to coming into the area and being rewarded. Have the system set up ahead of time so the herd is familiar being around it (particularly for the first few times through it). Many people like their portable pens setup in a circular arrangement. We have a small herd so for us it’s typically a couple of rectangular pens in sequence which feed into the tub. Keeping a flow of cattle is the goal, knowing cows want to go where other cows are going. Eight foot walk-through gates make it easy to sort down to smaller numbers as they work through the system. We have learned to keep the number in the tub low - two cows, three maximum. With too many they feel comfortable being next to each other and don’t want to leave the group to go into the alley.
Coming out of the chute it’s handy to have a small holding area that can feed back into your sort pen if one gets past the headlock. You can release small groups much easier than trying to sort out the troublemaker from half the herd. Two outlets from the holding area can be arranged to handle the open/pregnant separation.
It’s good to remember patience the first day. The initial working of our new system was the worst. It’s only become better as both the cows and us learned it. Best of luck to you.
Edited by ksmith 11/8/2026 22:38
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Corral chute setup reccomendations
