A few months ago we put up a new set of cattle yards on one of our properties. Some of you may recall my Ikea for cattle blog. The yards arrived flatpacked on the back of a truck with loading ramp and crush and a few days later they were erected. It was a far cry from the old days of cutting down timber, de-barking logs and then digging four foot holes in the ground to position the uprights. With the heavy work attended to it was either off to the local saw mill to purchase timber or the cutting of lengths to form panels was done on farm.

 So it’s good-bye to old wooden yards when it comes to erecting new ones. What use to be an incredibly labour intensive job is now a matter of unpack, arrange design and erect. Presto! Our most recent set of yards have had about 1,000 head of cattle through them since February and they worked like a charm. The cattle moved easily through them, calves were branded quickly and efficiently and apart from the lack of shade-we selected a dry ridge for placement so the area will dry out quickly following wet weather and we’ll need to plant some trees around the perimeter in the spring-everyone is happy with the end result. 

The ‘boss’ my dad, shown below in the blue shirt gave the yards the thumbs up on the first day. Just as well. It took a good day and a half to position the panels and then a loader was needed to place the crush and loading ramp in place.

Am loving these shots of the cattle being let out after branding …