Crowd Gate Replacement

When a group of cows goes up to the parlor for milking, at the start of the group there are about 125 cows in the area we call the holding area.  Each time a side of cows leaves the parlor another 16 cows proceed from the holding area into the parlor and so the amount of space these cows need to be held in is constantly getting smaller and smaller.  To manage this area, we use a crowd gate which slides on rails along this area, gradually decreasing in size the holding area and moving the cows up toward the parlor.

Well after 15 years, the crowd gate had begun to cause us a lot of troubles and we decided that it was time to replace it.  No big deal, right?  We just write a check, take the old one out and put the new one in.  Sounds simple - oh but it was far from simple.  The 3 days it took us to get this done each started by 7 am and we quit about 6:30 pm each night.  You see what makes this less than simple is the fact we need to keep milking cows and since each shift takes 7 hours and 45 minutes from start to clean up, there isn't a lot of time to work without having to manage around the cows.  Here are some pictures of our project:

This is our old crowd gate which at one point we had to work on about 8 different times in a period of 6 weeks - it was really time to make this upgrade!!

The new crowd gate was loaded from a trailer that we had to back it into the barns about 700 feet to the holding area.  We used this skid steer with forks to lift the frame off the trailer and then assemble it up on the tracks.  We did most of the work on the new gate in the back end of the holding area to allow us to continue to used the old gate in the area up by the parlor.

 The skid steer holding the frame in place while being attached to the brackets that ride along the track.

Work being done to replace the rails while cows are still being milked.  It sure would have been nice if the rails that the gate rides on would have worked for the new gate.  Replacing these took lots of time and lots of grinding and welding, neither of which the cows are really comfortable with.

Removal of the old gate.  This was tricky because the gate itself was wider than the holding area.  We had to lift it, shift it slightly so it was crooked.  And then maneuver it to the back of the holding area and take it out on the trailer like we brought ht new gate in.

Temporarily how we moved cows, yes I WAS the crowd gate for a few days!!

The new crowd gate in operation!!  Like most thing in life, it was a challenging three days but oh so worth it in the end.