Livestock Corrals Made From Truck Tires

Livestock Corrals Made From Truck Tires FENCING Fence Systems 20-3-4 Old truck tires can be used to make low-cost corrals, says rancher George Work, San Miguel, Calif., who used about 1,000 truck tires to make a pair of corrals and alleyways for handling about 300 head of beef cattle. "I got the tires free from a company that delivered them to my ranch at no charge," says Work. "One great benefit of using tires is that they have a cushioning effect that helps prevent injuries." Each corral is circular in design and has an alleyway leading up to it. Work used 20-in. and larger truck tires for the bottom five layers of tires, which are stacked in vertical columns. He used a skidsteer loader to fill each of the five layers with dirt. He then added two more layers of smaller truck tires on top, overlapping them for strength but adding no dirt. He used an electric drill to screw all the tires together, using four 5/16-in. lag bolts per tire. "I spent only a little over $1,000 to build it, including a labor cost of $400 to bolt the tires together," says Work. "I also spent about $500 on bolts and $150 on labor to fill the tires with dirt. "The corral is located where seven pastures come together on the back side of our ranch. We use it to load cattle into a goose-neck trailer. A big advantage with using tires is that we didn't have to worry about setting steel posts into hard, rocky ground. Also, tires work beautifully for making curves. There's no extra cutting or fitting that's necessary with wood or steel corrals. "I didn't overlap the bottom five layers of tires because it would have been impossible to fill them with dirt. I don't know if I needed to use bolts or not to hold the tires together, but on an alleyway where I didn't use bolts bulls flipped off several tires.." Work made low-cost temporary gates for the corral by bolting strips of tire tread vertically onto steel pipe frames. He got the strips from a local company that removes the sidewalls and cuts the remaining tread into 6-ft. lengths so they can pile them into dumpsters. "We left only a 4 to 6-in. space between strips so cows can't get their heads between them," notes Work. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, George Work, 75903 Ranchita Canyon Road, San Miguel, Calif. 93451 (ph 805 467-3233).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.