Legune Station


Thompson Longhorn was responsible for the detailed design, fabrication, and installation of an extensive and complex automated processing facility at Legune Station in NT near Kununurra, WA. This facility consisted of two dual-race working centres, one for processing adult cattle and the other for processing calves and weaners. The entire working centre is completely automated and controlled via remote control handsets.

Cattle enter the yards through a fully sheeted bugle which is divided into three sections by pneumatic gates. The bugle is surrounded by a catwalk for personnel access and directs the cattle into the first of two 360° pneumatic crowding yards. 

The first crowding yard leads into a parallel curved race, pneumatic restrainer, and weigh-box. Following this, a 5-way pneumatic draft separates calves and weaners from the adult stock and separates cows and heifers for visual inspection and preg-testing.

The calves and weaners proceed through a 180° crowding yard into the weaner handling facility which consists of two sets of weaner race, weigh-box, and weaner cradle. The pneumatic pound draft is used for visual inspection of heifers whilst cows are drafted through to the second 360° pneumatic crowding yard. This crowding yard leads into two preg-testing setups, each consisting of a fully sheeted parallel curved race, pneumatic cattle restrainer, and a 4-way pneumatic draft.