different manufacturers,” says Dr. Ryan Reuter, agri- cultural research specialist for The Samuel R. Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Okla. “Quality consists of many characteristics, but I think the things that are important for ranchers to consider are making sure their equipment is safe, both for the cattle and themselves; making sure it’s reliable and durable so it will last a long time and have few repairs; and that it’s low stress
Design might trump weight: Evaluate equipment purchases on how well the component is made and works and the quality of its materials.
on the cattle, and low stress on the people.” But when it comes to the cost-effectiveness factor
in which product to select, there’s no “one-size-fi ts-all” answer. The producer has to gauge the cost and quality of the handling component with the size of the opera- tion and how often it will be used. Reuter gives chutes as an example, saying, “If they’re
considering a hydraulic chute but are really concerned about the cost, instead of looking at the cheapest hy- draulic chute we can fi nd, maybe a better option is to look at the best manual chute we can fi nd. That’s probably even a little less money and is a better qual- ity piece of equipment in the long run, and they’ll be happier with it.” Reuter says quality is not just a measure of the
component parts of the device, but how it’s designed and assembled. He says, “Obviously, having chutes and panels made out of thicker steel so they’re heavier is better, but in a lot of cases it’s just not that simple. There are differences in the design and engineering and in the research and development that goes into the systems. I think those characteristics are some- times more important than just looking at the gross weight of a chute or the thickness of the material that it’s made of.” By extension, this means if a manufacturer produces what you consider to be a high quality component of a
80 The Cattleman September 2013
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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