DEAR SIR: I am a vet working with lots of different handling facilities and could give a stand-up lecture on their construction any time. But the one topic I do wish to comment on is the recommendation of anti-backing bars in crushes.
Fortunately, most of our farmers that bought them found them useless. But the very idea of the bar is a safety risk: the animal has to push its way past the bar which folds outwards. It‘s a bad idea to teach an animal to push into things to see will they yield. What about gates being held open to direct them, farmers holding up sticks to represent a barrier, or just the odd loose post in a fence? Do we really want the cattle to run into them just to test them?
Most cattle are reluctant to go past an anti-backing bar and this is a good thing. It means they have good manners. If cattle are calmly led into a crush and, this is very important, let out the front, the farmer should have no problem putting them in. One very common fault is reversing them out. If they know that the way out is behind them, they‘ll switch into reverse as soon as they‘re halfway up and that makes things very hard.