cattle guard design

[Igmeld]

Hi Everyone,

I'm not on here much because life keeps me busy with things, but I'm in the need of a cattle guard for a pasture. I'm thinking of welding it myself if it comes out economically to do it that way, versus flat out purchasing one from a vendor and having it shipped. I would like to request thoughts from the welding site community regarding the design of one. The picture attached shows where I want to place it, and the opening between the posts is fifteen feet, two and a half inches. I've done some research and there forms that can be had that are eight feet, but the opening is too narrow to use two of them side by side.
Equipment crossing this will be a 700 series Melroe bobcat, and a Farmall M tractor, each with attachments, and the occasional full size pickup. This is in Minnesota so frost heave has to be taken into consideration. I would appreciate the design help and thanks in advance.

 

[flyerdan]

I've got a gate calculator program that will generate cut lists for all kinds of gate frames. Square frame, bent frame (as in your pic) single, double, from 1.375 to 2.875 diameter material.
If you'd give a quick sketch of what you'd like, I can get a cut list; different leaf sizes aren't a problem, we did them all the time

 

[Gary Fowler]

You are basically building a bridge so you need concrete footers and support beams on which to lay your pipe for the top deck. Of course you need a slight ditch underneath to keep everything out of the dirt. I would think that 6" I beams would work fine for the beam supports and 2" schedule 80 pipe laid diagonal to the road across 4 of the beams (one on each side and two equally spaced in the middle) would work fine and support just about any load crossing it. The guard needs to be wide enough to discourage a cow from trying to jump across it. I think most of the ones I have seen are 6-8 feet wide.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I saw a lot of them used in Canada. When approaching it there would be a sign that said "Texas gate ahead". Funny, I saw lots more of them in Canada than in Texas.