Rawhide Portable Corral, Inc. of Abilene, Kansas has been manufacturing portable corrals and livestock equipment for the last fourteen years and is recognized throughout the livestock industry as a leader and innovator in portable livestock corral design and construction.

 

Owner and inventor John McDonald designed the product after working with cattle and rodeo livestock for

most of his life. Never quite satisfied with the products that were available at the time, he decided to design his own portable corral and incorporated new innovations that make the product easy to handle and maneuver while in the field or pasture.

 

John combined his love of working with livestock, mostly rodeo bulls, with the desire to make it easier to set up a pen for catching cattle. He used to set up the portable arenas in coliseums around the country for the first televised bull ridings, the “Bull Riders Only” series.

 

Having had surgery on his shoulders and back, John knew how hard these portable panels can be to work with, not to mention the limited supply of qualified labor available to erect these corrals. John envisioned a way to use wheels on panels to make the set-up easier. As we all know, rolling is a lot easier than carrying.

 

John invented the Rawhide Corral in 2002. The first model was basic, requiring you to remove the transport wheels before setting the framework on the ground. The pinning system on the corral panels is what makes the system fold up neatly for transport. Because the old style Rawhide design had been copied and similar versions available from other suppliers, John redesigned and improved his corral and introduced the Rawhide Processor in 2010.

 

The Rawhide Processor is available in three sizes (Standard, Large and Super Large) for the convenience of ranchers and cattle producers throughout North America. The Standard Processor is optimal for smaller herds and has a 40-50 cow/calf capacity. The Large Processor is the most popular corral with our current customers and has an 80-90 cow/calf capacity. The largest Processor, Super Large, has a 140 cow/calf capacity and was designed specifically with those larger cattle producers in mind. Regardless of size, each corral offers the most versatility in pen size and configuration of any corral on the market.

 

If customer satisfaction is any indicator, John McDonald, the designer of the Rawhide Portable Corral, has really outdone himself with this new design. A popular feature is the permanent sheeted adjustable alley that makes it much easier to work your livestock, whether it is done on site or in the field. The

adjustable alley can be sized from thirty inches down to sixteen inches; either manually or hydraulically. In addition, the Processor offers the option of mounting a head gate to the end of the alley for easy, on site cattle processing. Customers often comment that the head gate feature, along with the self-contained loading chute, make this corral one of the easiest to use.  Regardless of your choice of design or size of the Rawhide, if you like to lure your cattle with feed, the Rawhide offers cattle producers the capability of driving a pickup truck completely through and out the opposite end of the corral.

 

Each panel section has its own solid rubber wheel which means no flats and no worries while out in the field working cattle. And for convenience and safety, the Rawhide corral has several gates to aid in human movement about the system. Need more room? The Rawhide has the capability of forming two, three and even four pens to help with sorting your livestock.

 

But the most notable features of the Rawhide corrals are their ease of set up and transport. Ask any Rawhide customer and they’ll tell you it’s true, one person can open up the corral without lifting a panel in ten minutes. That’s the key. One person can handle it all by themselves and can easily manipulate the panels so it is not just one big pen, but two, three or even 4 pens for sorting. As cattlemen and ranchers all know, you can never have enough pens when it comes to working cattle. For this reason, John designed the corral so you can add or subtract equipment.

 

And finally, the systems incorporated into the design of the Rawhide corral allow this ease of use by utilizing electric over hydraulic cylinders on the back end and the front end of the unit. The sixteen inch transport wheels are permanent, retracting up and down with the flip of a switch, and allow the system to be hauled at the normal speed limit while relocating it to a pasture or field. The hydraulic cylinders and permanent wheels mean that no more effort is wasted to unpin and slide the wheels off the

axels to then roll them out of the way.

 

To give the Processor added support and convenience in hauling, this model comes as a gooseneck, has a self-contained power unit with long life marine battery and a solar panel mounted on top.

 

Rawhide Portable Corral has always been a family operation and will continue into the next generation. John and his wife Mary, their son Ethan and daughter Cassandra run the operation at their facility in Abilene, KS.

 

For more information, call 785-263-3436 or visit our website and view our video: www.rawhideportablecorral.com