Building a portable corral post #1
So far the corral project has largely remained in the planning and design phase, which is an important part of building a corral. One major constraint on the design is that I want the corral to be portable. In my opinion having a portable bison handling system keeps avenues open for future land leasing, additional purchases of non-adjoining properties, or even moving the entire operation somewhere else.
I have looked into ready-made portable bison handling systems. Many of these appear to be very well built and would work. However, they are also very expensive and, frankly, it's just not my style to buy something when I could easily make it myself.
The 12 foot long panel as it was designed in Google SketchUp |
The second prototype. |
The rotatable steel form. |
The 24 foot long free-standing corral panel. |
Early this year, after I had acquired a large flatbed trailer and was able to move the welding equipment to the ranch, I began to rethink the panel design. I didn't like the way the panels would fit together and having them only 12 feet long made for an awful lot of panels to unload and position with the tractor. The resulting revision to this panel is what's known as a free-standing corral panel. This 24 foot long panel stands 6 feet high on detachable feet and is linked to other free-standing panels using chains with chain gussets. As it is currently designed each panel will consume 166 feet of 2"x2" steel tube and 22 feet of 2.5"x2.5" at a total weight of 350 lbs and cost of around $280. As with the previous panel designs, I plan to build a prototype before going into larger scale production.
I will continue to post updates as this project progresses.
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