"Our portable windbreak panels work great to protect cattle," says Lloyd Thompson of Carnduff, Sask.

Thompson uses oilfield pipe and lumber to make the windbreaks. Boards bolt vertically to the frame. An open space at the top of the windbreak allows you to grab it with a front-end loader or forklift.

Thompson found that a portable windbreak fence was the perfect solution for sheltering cattle on some rented range land during the winter. The cattle had been sheltered in aspen groves but browsed so much that the aspen trees were dying out. He tried using flax straw bales for windbreaks, but the cows ate them as well.

"They had to be extremely mobile. I move them every week. I can use my front-end loader to pick them up, and because they're 20 percent open they don't blow over. Moving them helps spread the manure out," he says.

Thompson and his brother Ian and nephew Brock are now making portable windbreaks in their welding shop.