Cattleguards Built Using Old Pipe

Cattleguards Built Using Old Pipe Lindsay Jay Gillis put abandoned natural gas pipeline to good use by building cattle guards. He built his first one 30 years ago, building six in all, with four still in service. “They’ve held up well,” says Gillis. “My dad built cattleguards in the 1950s using 2-in. pipe and concrete bases. They stopped the cattle, but weren’t strong enough. Later, he bought cattle guards, but they didn’t stand up to the track tractor and steel wheels we used.” Gillis designed his to last. They’re 7 by 16 by 2 ft., with 11 16-ft. long 4-in. pipes for the top layer. Those pipes lie across and are bolted to a layer of seven 7-ft. long, 7-in. sections of well casing. Those sections, in turn, are bolted to two 16-ft., 7-in. pieces of well casing. Each piece of well casing has access holes for bolting the layers together. Gillis recalls the pipe being easy to access. The 4-in. pipe was laid just a few inches below the surface. “My dad had a backhoe, and we would uncover the pipe and cut it into 20-ft. sections,” says Gillis. “We used it for a lot of projects, like a field drag (Vol. 42, No. 2).” The well casing was pulled from a natural gas well on the farm before the well was plugged. It extended down to a coal vein under the farm. “We’ve used up most of the pipe,” says Gillis. “It’s nearly 100 years old, but it’s still strong.” Gillis designed his cattleguards to take advantage of that strength and to provide drainage. The 2-ft. height helped. He added 2-ft. spacers made of 7-in. casing between the ends of the middle-layer pipes to deflect dirt. He made sure to set them on level areas, preferably on the tops of hills. “I wanted to avoid having sediment getting trapped in the pipes,” says Gillis. “Once the dirt builds up, the cattleguards are useless.” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lindsay Jay Gillis, P.O. Box 198, Beallsville, Penn. 15313 (ph 412-997-2775).

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