"screen" gate

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33803, 27 March 1975, Page 11

"screen" gate

The needles extend to four inches from the ground and are four inches apart.

The standard model is for a 14ft wide gateway, but with extra needles it is possible to extend the screen to fit any gate width.

The essential components for the 14ft model weigh only about 301 b and can be carried in the one har.d. Mr Stephens has begun to manufacture the screen gate and the standard model is expected to retail at not more than $27. Al first eight gauge wire was used in the screen but it was found that it bent. Now 124 gauge high tensile steel wire, mechanically straightened, is being used and seems to meet the requirements well.

The screen can be quickly and easily drawn aside to “open” the gate, like a curtain, using a nylon cord. On the odd occasion during the year when it might be wanted to take a high load of hay through or to get some high piece of machinery through the gate it can be dismantled easily in no more than five minutes.

At Sommerlea the gate has been put to the test in a number of situations with cattle and has come up with flying colours. This week 48 big Frie-I sian cows, one of them weighing 18001 b. were removed from 85 calves they had been suckling and put in a paddock with a screen gate on it. Though standing around the gate after 24 hours none of the cows had got through.

Early this year when it was very dry in the district 50 cows and 90 calves were contained in a paddock with a screen gate and then on the other side of the gate hay was fed out. One animal went through the fence — not the gate — but all of the others were restrained bv the gate. In another test a screen gate was put across a 14ft. lane and then a mob of 75 bulls was driven towards it by a team of people and three dogs. But these cattle got the message from the gate and not one went through.

Neither of these groups had had previous experience with the screen gate but they quickly developed a healthy respect for it. Mr Hopkins said that stock needed to become educated to the use of it for it to become fully effective.

A screen gate has also been used on the property on a lane or alleyway close

to the cattle yards and in four months only one or two beasts have got out, but they could not be persuaded to come back through the screen gate again.

The gate with its tour inch spacings between needles is designed as both a sheep and cattle gate It was tested with about 600 to 700 well woolled hoggets on a neighbouring property. They had been running in two paddocks and were put into one paddock with a screen gate to keep them in. They were kept there for five weeks at the end of which the paddock in which they were grazing was very

bare indeed, but only one got out in all that time and it may have escaped through the fence. Mr Stephens says that it is also good with pigs. The gate is easy on vehicles that drive through it in that it does not scratch them, but to give extra protection it is proposed to put plastic tips on the needles.

Maintenance of the gate is expected to be minimal. High winds are not expected to cause any major problems with the needles. It has been found that, tying the three needles on either side of the gate together near ground level has given added stability and prevented the needles becoming hooked up.

A possible place has been seen for the gate on snow risk country where sheep sometimes back up against a gate and are smothered. It is expected that under such pressure they would go through this gate.

Mr Stephens sees his gate' as being an energy and labour saving device, in that it will eliminate vehicle stopping and starting at gateways and also save time for the people concerned — 10 minutes a day opening and closing gates amounts to 60 hours a year. It may also be an aid to cattle management in that cattle passing through such a gate when it is opened will move more cautiously, and this and also the elimination of vehicle stopping and starting should mean less cutting up of the ground at gateways. He has also been i heartened by the interest 1 that people have taken in it, and one of these is : an Englishman with New i Zealand farming interests I who sees a possible 1 place for it in England and Europe.