A Longstanding Impact
By Maura Keller
When life gets going pretty fast, you kind of forget some of the little things that led to where you are.” – John McDonald, founder of Rawhide Portable Corrals.
The longstanding history of Rawhide Portable Corrals and the impact John McDonald’s invention and ingenuity has had on the cattle industry is profound. Nearly 25 years ago, McDonald developed of the first portable hydraulic corral on wheels, with multiple pens and 200-head capacity. Fast forward to today, and McDonald is still going strong – developing new, innovative products that help producers do their jobs more efficiently, effectively, and more safely.
Throughout the years since his original invention, McDonald’s portable corral has captured the attention of many throughout the cattle industry, especially as Rawhide has evolved to offer multiple corrals and additional unique product features that have earned the company a solid reputation in the industry.
“I got my initial ideas about a portable corral when I was doing equipment setups for the televised bull ridings,” McDonald says. “I have been a cowboy all my life. I started getting on things that bucked when I was four years old and continued to be around rodeo through my adult years, learning from the best. For not growing up on a cattle operation, I guess I just have some kind of an innate knack for how cattle and livestock work through equipment.”
When McDonald would help with the televised bull riding setups he became familiar with what was needed, constantly looking at things for safety and speed and to make the flow of cattle work well.
“I was around a lot of good rodeos, good stock contractors, good setups and I think my mind took note on all those places and things that I was around,” McDonald says. “I was in Chicago, setting up at Rosemount Horizon for bull riding. We had 80 bulls being brought in that I had to see that they were housed and didn’t get away in the center of a city. There was not one saddle horse around, because the promoters in the early days didn’t want to spend the money to have a saddle horse. They figured, you know, it’s a bull ridings in a small arena, we don’t need to rope anything. So I think the concern in my mind for safety and to keep something jailed, so to speak, made me think about the concept of a portable corral and work at it a little bit harder.” 
When McDonald first brought his portable hydraulic corral to fruition, there was only one similar product on the market. McDonald honed his initial design to have standout features that incorporated insights from cattlemen and producers in the industry – those who have a first-hand understanding of the features needed that would make their jobs easier and safer. Throughout the years McDonald has embraced the continuous improvement process to refine the Rawhide Portable Corral into a product that new generations of cattle producers have come to expect.
“I was so excited when I invented Rawhide and I developed something that one person could do, that one person could set up in 10 minutes to catch hundreds of cattle,” McDonald says. “And unfortunately, because the one that existed before me, the only one, it was hard for me to get all the patents that I wanted, because it was considered prior art. I managed to not infringe. But because it was prior art, it makes it hard to get patents.
Today, there are about 10 portable corrals on wheels in the United States, and they’re all my design. What I continue to do, though, is I’m constantly covering all aspects of it for safety and for the animals to stay housed. I’ve had sleepless nights over this invention, constantly trying to make it better.”
It is McDonald’s continuous innovation that captures the attention of those in the cattle industry. Not only has Rawhide changed the cattle industry for the better – by providing a streamlined means for capturing and containing cattle, but it has helped keep animals and cattle producers safer along the way.
Today, Rawhide Portable Corral customers can choose from a series of different models, including the Classic, the Processor, and the Rancho Deluxe. While the chosen size will depend on the number of cattle being managed, each of these systems boast a hydraulic jack, self-contained power unit and battery with a solar charger, and the ability for the entire system to be driven through with a bale or cube feeder. In addition, the corral system can be pulled at the speed limit, thanks to McDonald developing an innovative torsion suspension.
“Other than stock trailers that people haul their cattle with, I’ve got the only piece of livestock equipment that you can pull down the highway that actually has a patented torsion suspension,” McDonald says. “Most livestock equipment just have axles on them because people are not traveling very far. But Rawhide has customers that have cattle in three different states, and I felt the need for a solid suspension system. I learned, after several years of building this, that folks were driving up and down the highway with my product, and there was some fatigue on the axles – not just on the highway, but customers were driving way too fast in their pastures. So I invented this patented torsion suspension axle.”
That’s also one of the reasons McDonald continues to make Rawhide Portable Corrals better – continuous improvement and operational safety and security is truly the “name of the game” at Rawhide. 
“Throughout the years we have seen the competitors cheapen up their models and create bad news for our product, so we have to flood Rawhide’s market with good news about new revelations and new designs,” McDonald says. “I take care of my customers from coast to coast and in Canada. I’m in the livestock equipment industry, and there are not that many of us and we have our fraternity of folks that do this. Nearly everyone on the planet has a refrigerator and a washing machine, but not everyone has a portable corral. So I take it more personally, and I try to work at it more deliberately to provide products that enhance our way of life.”
In addition to Rawhide’s portable corral systems, McDonald has also developed a portable Windbreak, which can withstand 50+ mph winds and also has a built-in loafing shed and calving pen option. The portable, foldable, windbreak is on wheels and, like the Rawhide Portable Corral, can be set up by one person.
In designing the new portable windbreak system, McDonald was striving to develop a solution that would protect animals from extreme weather conditions, resulting in less cold stress and less heat stress on livestock.
“I’ve done my due diligence to try to cover as much as possible with this windbreak, just like I did the corral,” McDonald says. “Besides the fact that it’s that long of a windbreak that’s braced, I have a roof on it, on the center where the mainframe is that serves as the trailer. So you can hydraulically, with the press of a button, raise the roof, and you have an 18×24 foot-long lean to that calves can get under in bad conditions as well.”
As history has proven, McDonald’s continuous vision for improvement of his products, as well as developing new innovations to enhance the cattle industry, is never-ceasing.
“I do have some things that I’m going to do in the future, including enhancing the framework of Rawhide a little bit more,” McDonald says. “I’ve built thousands of corrals, and I have had hundreds of people tell me that this made the difference in whether they stayed in or got out of the cattle business. They might not have a thousand head of cattle, but they’ve got 200 head of cattle and they don’t feel like they can afford to hire a full-time guy to help them with their cattle. So they still do everything. I get that from folks all the time – ‘We were going to get out of the cattle business if it wasn’t for your portable corral and we don’t know what we’d do without it now.’ I’m really flattered when I hear that, as that was my intention from the beginning.”
