Corral Part 3

I've written about the new corral project before (part 1, part 2).  All of the posts are in, and the railings are mostly up.  The picture above shows the scale area of the corral, from the inside of the corral. 

Just before and just after the scale area are blocking gates, to control individual animals and allow them one-by-one into the scare area.  one post is a 4x4, the other is a 6x6.  The gate slides up a rail between them.

This is the view of the blocking gate from inside the chute.  You can see the rail it slides on extending to the top left of the picture.  It's operated from outside the corral, which in the above picture is on the right.  There will be a catwalk along that side, with a string to operate each gate. 

The rail is mounted at an angle, so that the weight of the gate closes it and keeps it closed. 

Per Temple Grandins' guidelines, the length of the chute is more than 3x the body length of the longest animal, and it's constructed with a curve so that the end of the chute (and the waiting truck) can't be seen until the very end. 

the sides of the chute will be faced with plywood to prevent the animals from balking at activity outside the gate; trucks, people, distracting dogs, whatever, also per Temples guidelines.  this is the animals view down the chute -- they can see about 25' down, and then it curves off to the left of the picture. 

about 10' before the loading ramp there's a gate that swings into the chute, and directs the animals into one of the holding areas.  So if I have an animal that somehow gets into the truckload, by using the blocking gates and this sorting gate I can quickly remove them from the load. 

It's been interesting working with curves in this structure.