Introduction

A pound draft might be easily explained as a circular draft. This unit is designed to aid with the selection of animals by visual characteristics such as brand, frame or breed. A pound can also be a hub that connects a number of pens. Separating animals is against their instinctive nature as they feel safety in numbers. This has led to many handler injuries, especially when handlers have tried to do this by entering the pound, thus exposing themselves to increased danger.

Description

A pound can be located off a feed lane, as a hub or at the end of a race for drafting. It can be used for the separation of cattle into groups based on the
shape, brand, paint ID or bull selection in a manner that is safe for the operator and creates least trauma for livestock. A drafting unit can be fitted with pneumatics which allows remote control operation from a safe location. These units are commonly used by feedlots, stations, sale yards, dairies etc.

Manual Pound History

A manual pound should be used only to draft complete pens of cattle, placed as a hub, a central connecting point between a group of pens and lanes. Manual pounds have been a common item in handling yards for many years. They were operated by a handler standing inside the pound, processing a small number of animals at a time and separating them using the exit gates. However this operation is very dangerous and has caused many injuries. In later years, to improve safety, external levers were connected to the gates. However injuries caused from livestock driven levers can still occur.

Pneumatic Pound Drafting

With the pneumatic pound draft it is important to understand its purpose and to know which selection decisions are made in the pound or prior to the pound. A pneumatic pound requires the indexing of animals into the pound.  If it is filled with several animals at once, it is difficult to separate and draft off individual animals, making the process slower and prone to error. Drafting decisions made inside the pound would include those that require an all-round visual inspection of the animal such as grouping cows for bull mating, brand verification, and evaluation of carcase score for abattoir selections. For these decisions animals need to be indexed individually for smooth continuous operation.

Draft decisions that can be made prior to entry into the pound could be based on paint marks for vendors, RFID tag identification, livestock colour,
etc. Making draft decisions prior to the pound allows multiple animals in the same grouping to be indexed into the pound, speeding up the drafting process.

It is important to note that pounds do not support automated processing based on weight and ID, whereas a lane draft supports this automation.

Pound configuration:

The manual pound has two length configurations to suit the operators needs. The standard configuration is 8 sides of 2 meters which includes 1 entry gate and 5 exit gates. The alternative configuration has 8 sides with 2 sides of 3 meters and 6 sides of 2 meters, this includes 1 entry gate (3 meters), 1 exit gate (3 meters) and 4 exit gates (2 meters).

Summary:

• A pound is a circular draft

• Good for sorting animals by visual characteristics

• Manual Pound used as a hub for drafting complete pens of cattle

• Pneumatic pounds need to be indexed

• Draft decisions can be either made inside or prior to the pound

Features:

• Heavy duty frame construction

• Hot dipped galvanized feet, good for highly corrosive environments

• Adjustable feet can take variations in slab height. Units need to be plumb for optimal operation of all gates

• Feet bolted to concrete allowing for removal and locating during installation (after concrete slab is poured)

• Can have leg extension instead of adjustable legs, where pounds aren’t located on concrete slabs (common for manual pounds)

• Entry gate double slam latched

• Can have personnel entry gate if pound used in conjunction with a catwalk. (common for pneumatic pounds)