Tagging a bison - photo

[ductape]

That's silly...

The chute is made from tubular steel. The one I had (Powder River) was more sturdy than a lightweight beef device, mostly because the buffies would move quickly and crashing into the end to try to get out of the enclosed space was their way of dealing with the chute. Mine also had all the openings covered with 1/16"-ish plate so movement outside the chute would not be visible as that spooks them. I did have a crash cage on the head end, it was the easiest way to get them captured - close the cage, open the neck squeeze, open the side squeeze, open the tail gate, and then open the chute gate to let one in. Invariably, it would charge the cage which it could see through to the outside world and then we could close the neck squeeze and the tail gate.

The crash cage was 2" square tubing. The neck squeeze is tubular steel as well, don't recall for sure, but 1 1/4" round tube is my guess. The neck squeeze also had a rubber collar to protect the animal.

I did have a couple of old bulls that got in a fight and one was pushed backward - into the fence - pushed parallel to the fence, but a slight angle so that the pushed bull's rear end snapped off eight 4" wood fence posts just like they were match sticks.

Most of the time the buffies thought the fence was a good thing as it kept those pesky two legged things out of their field, but if they got in a fight, barriers weren't much use. In places where they were more tightly corralled, then fence posts were 6", spacing was closer, and if need be, I used guard rail instead of wire. When I took it down, I had about 38,000 pounds of guard rail to sell off...

The people around here that raise bison have a fence made of railroad ties and head chutes that might hold an angry bull. Kudos to you and anyone else who deals with that.