Apple Gully Farm: The Cattle Yard Shopping Expedition

With the help of our neighbours we've had several cattle round ups, but it was becoming clear that one day in the near future we were going to need our own cattle yards. As part of our research on yards we discovered that we needed to learn 'cattle yardese.' Here's a quiz- what is a 'man gate'- too easy, so here are a few more --

what is a :- crossover gate, baulk gate, bullock pacifier, race, forcing gate and don't forget the double gudgeon because it can either cause trouble or stop trouble.

The initial question for those in a cattle yard free zone is- to go with timber or gal, that's galvanised steel of course. The vision of an old timber cattle yard with corner posts so huge a grown man can't get his arms around them is appealing, but the modern cattle yard has no corners. Cattle inherently love corners, they herd into them head first with their rumps facing the world and refuse to budge. Its hard enough to make a mob of cattle stay in forward gear, so forget an orderly reverse out of a corner. To over come this problem, cattle yards these days are built in a series of octagons, hexagons, pentagons and wedges. That's just the yards, the piece de resistance is the crush. The deluxe model comes with slide gates, vet gates, chin bar, split slide gates, baulk crush, and hydraulic fold away handles. Who could resist, shopping for cattle yards is a bit like buying an ice cream, why would you buy vanilla in a single cone when you could have a triple flavour in a hand rolled extra large waffle cone with your choice of toppings. It's a no brainer!

When it comes to making a final decision, shopping for cattle yards is like choosing your child's school or buying a new car, everyone thinks their choice is the best and loves to tell you why. Browsing on the internet is helpful but there are no cattle yard shops, you can't just drop down to Bunnings and pack one onto a trolley on Saturday morning.

So once again it was off to a farming field day where we could kick the metaphorical tyres on the yards to see exactly how they worked.

In the past shopping with 'cattle yard man' has never been a truly satisfying experience, he has an attention span of approximately 35 minutes and then we buy 3 pairs of identical pants and forget about the shirts or the red sweater because it all gets too fraught.

On a cool Autumn morning we headed up the freeway on a mission to find ourselves some cattle yards. Field days are a wonderful magnet for everyone buying and selling anything rural. Once through the turnstiles, the first few hours were spent testing out yards, then a second circuit of testing was needed, then a third was suggested. I sensed that my superior experience gained at many Christmas sales was required. Why once I had managed to grab three pairs of shoes, a handbag, two sets of sheets and a 60 piece cutlery set in just 40 minutes.

'We can't just go and buy a set of yards' moaned cattle yard man.

'Why not.' was my exasperated reply. 'Thats what we came here for.'

'No one just buys them.' he rationalised.

We were in serious trouble, we were on a shopping expedition and about to go home empty handed.

So back we went to the favoured manufacturer only to discover that we were in a queue. There were two people ahead of us, both with their credit card ready, both buying a complete set of cattle yards.

Five weeks later, the yards arrived on the back of a truck, custom designed to our requirements. In the end it was like shopping at Ikea, the yards came in a giant flat pack ready to be erected. I expected a huge allen key to be included, along with instructions to 'insert A(2) into T(4)' but no, they came with Troy who set up our yards in about two and a half hours while carrying on