102 Western Live-stock Management 



easy access to the beam. The gate from the corral or 

 chute to the scales should be placed just in front of the 

 scales, and made about eight or ten feet wide. The gate 

 may then be swung outward to meet the scale gate, and 

 by fastening the two together a chute is formed direct 

 from the corral to the scale-rack. Yet when the gates 

 are closed and the scale removed, there is nothing to 

 prevent easy access of wagons and teams to the scales. 

 If the scale-rack is made rather high and with a gate at 

 each end, a team and wagon may be driven through with- 

 out removing the rack, but this arrangement is useful 

 only in weighing small loads of grain ; it cannot be utilized 

 for loads as large as a load of hay. Cattle-racks are some- 

 times made with the sides hinged at the bottom so that 

 they may be dropped back far enough to allow a load of 

 hay to drive through, but these racks are practically 

 never strong enough to hold western cattle. 



Special attention should be given the arrangement 

 of the corrals, so that the cattle may be brought to the 

 scales with the least amount of difficulty. Not only does 

 running the cattle around the corral waste much time, but 

 it likewise runs the flesh off the steers and causes shrinkage. 

 If the corrals are so arranged that the cattle may be 

 weighed without running them around or exciting them 

 in any way, they will often weigh as much as five or ten 

 pounds a head more than if weighed from corrals that re- 

 quire a good deal of running to get them on the scales. 

 A model arrangement of corrals, chutes, and scales is shown 

 in Fig. 9. This system includes the good points in corral 

 construction from various western ranches. 



