engineering

Livestock crush

Livestock crush is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Livestock crush rather than just read about it. In short: A cattle crush (in UK, New Zealand, Ireland, Botswana and Australia), squeeze chute (North America), cattle chute (North America), standing stock, or simply stock (North America, Ireland) is a strongly built stall or cage for holding cattle, horses, or other livestock safely while they are examined, marked, or given veterinary treatment. Cows may be made to suckle calves in a crush.

Key takeaways

Livestock crush belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Livestock crush to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Livestock crush from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A cattle crush (in UK, New Zealand, Ireland, Botswana and Australia), squeeze chute (North America), cattle chute (North America), standing stock, or simply stock (North America, Ireland) is a strongly built stall or cage for holding cattle, horses, or other livestock safely while they are examined, marked, or given veterinary treatment. Cows may be made to suckle calves in a crush. For the safety of the animal and the people attending it, a close-fitting crush may be used to ensure the animal stands "stock still". The overall purpose of a crush is to hold an animal still to minimise the risk of injury to both the animal and the operator while work on the animal is performed.

Construction

Crushes were traditionally manufactured from wood; this, however, was prone to deterioration from the elements over time, as well as having the potential to splinter and cause injury to the animal. In recent years, most budget-quality crushes have been built using standard heavy steel pipe that is welded together, while superior quality crushes are now manufactured using doubly symmetric oval tubing for increasing bending strength, bruise minimisation and stiffness in stockyard applications. In Australia, the steel itself should ideally be manufactured to High Tensile Grade 350LO - 450LO and conform to Australian Standards AS 1163 for structural steel. Cattle crushes may be fully fixed or mobile; however, most crushes are best classified as semipermanent, being potentially movable but designed to primarily stay in one place. A cattle crush is typically linked to a cattle race (also known as an alley). The front end has a head bail (or neck yoke or head gate) to catch the animal and may have a baulk gate that swings aside to assist in catching the beast. The bail is often adjustable to accommodate animals of different sizes. This bail may incorporate a chin or neck bar to hold the animal's head still. A side lever operates the head bail to capture the animals, with the better types having a rear drop-away safety lever for easier movement of the cattle into the bail. Usually, smaller animals can walk through the head bails incorporated in crushes.

Lower side panels and/or gates of sheet metal, timber or conveyor belting are used in some cases to ensure animals' legs do not get caught and reduce the likelihood of operator injury. At least one side gate is usually split to allow access to various parts of the animal being held, as well as providing access to feed a calf, amongst other things. A squeeze crush has a manual or hydraulic mechanism to squeeze the animal from the sides, immobilizing the animal while keeping bruising to a minimum. A sliding entrance gate, operated from the side of the crush, is set a few feet behind the captured animal to allow for clearance and prevent other animals entering. Crushes will, in many cases, have a single or split veterinary gate that swings behind the animal to improve operator safety, while preventing the animal from moving backwards by a horizontal rump bar inserted just behind its haunches into one of a series of slots. If this arrangement is absent, a palpation cage can be added to the crush for veterinary use when artificial insemination or pregnancy testing is being performed, or for other uses. Older crushes can also be found to have a guillotine gate that is also operated from the side via rope or chain where the gate is raised up for the animal to go under upon entering the crush, and then let down behind the animal. A crush is a permanent fixture in slaughterhouses, because the animal is carried on a conveyor restrainer under its belly, with its legs dangling in a slot on either side. Carried in this manner, the animal is unable to move either forward or backward by its own volition. Some mobile crushes are equipped with a set of wheels so they can be towed from yard to yard. A few of these portable crushes are built so the crush may also be used as a portable loading ramp. A mobile crush must incorporate a strong floor, to prevent the animal moving it by walking along the ground. Crushes vary in sophistication, according to requirements and cost. The simplest are just a part of a cattle race (alley) with a suitable head bail. More complex ones incorporate features such as automatic catching systems, hatches (to gain access to various parts of the animal), winches (to raise the feet or the whole animal), constricting sides to hold the animal firmly (normal in North American slaughterhouses), a rocking floor to prevent kicking or a weighing mechanism.

Specialist crushes

Specialist crushes are made for various purposes. For example, those designed for cattle with very long horns (such as Highland cattle or Texas Longhorn cattle) are low-sided or very wide, to avoid damage to the horns. Other specialist crushes include those for tasks such as automatic scanning, foot-trimming or clipping the hair under the belly, and smaller crushes (calf cradles) for calves. Standing stocks for cattle and horses are more commonly stand-alone units, not connected to races (alleys) except for handling animals not accustomed to being handled. These stand-alone units may be permanent or portable. Some portable units disassemble for transport to shows and sales. These units are used during grooming and also with veterinary procedures performed with the animal standing, especially if it requires heavy sedation, or to permit surgery under sedation rather than general anesthesia. For some surgical procedures, this is reported to be efficient. These units also are used during some procedures that require a horse to stand still, but without sedation. There are two different types of specialised crushes used in rodeo arenas. Those for the "rough stock" events, such as bronc riding and bull riding, are known as bucking chutes or rough-riding chutes. For events such as calf roping, steer roping and team roping, the crush is called a roping chute. The rough-riding chutes are notably higher in order to hold adult bucking horses and bulls, and have platforms and rail spacing that allows riders and assistants to access the animal from above. These chutes release the animal and the rider through a side gate. A roping chute is large enough to contain a steer of the size used in steer wrestling and may also have a seat above the chute for an operator. The steer or calf is released through the front of the chute.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Livestock crush

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Livestock crush claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Livestock crush before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Livestock crush ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Livestock crush

In research: Livestock crush appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Livestock crush in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Livestock crush is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Animal equipment, Buildings and structures used to confine animals, Cattle, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Livestock crush outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Livestock crush in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Livestock crush means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Livestock crush out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Livestock crush in simple terms?

Why does Livestock crush matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Livestock crush?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Livestock crush.