We are presently designing new cattle yards and are intent of incorporating a "Bud Pen" to assist with cattle handling. The "Bud Pen" or "Bud Box" was the brain-child of American cattle handling guru Bud Williams. Here's a link to his website: http://stockmanship.com/. In Australia there are a couple of businesses that teach the low stress stockhandling methods. We attended a course a few years ago run by Grahame Rees and Rod Knight who are part owners of a business called Low Stress Stockhandling: http://www.lss.net.au/
Here are a couple of videos that help explain the principles behind "Bud Pens" and some actions shots of them being used:
1. Bud Pen being used to load cattle onto a truck. NB: It's important to bear in mind that the resultant density of the cattle that end up in the truck is not low stress i.e. there are too many for actual transport in a low stress manner.
2. Bud pen being used for cattle processing. NB: This video explains more about the benefits from the animal's perspective in going through the processing set-up.
