The Cattle Guard

I was driving on a back road near my house the other day and pulled in to a road leading in to a pasture.  There was a cattle guard that you had to cross to enter the property.  For those not familiar, a cattle guard is a means of keeping cattle from leaving the property.  It is normally constructed by a placing a grid of pipes welded across a grid over a ditch.  There is a fence on either side of the cattle guard.

The idea is that livestock walk up to the cattle guard and see that there isn't a way for them to cross it, so they stay in the pasture.  This particular cattle guard is constructed with railroad rails welded across some I-beams.  Cattle guards are a relatively old thing.  The first patent for one was issued back on January 15, 1915 in Nevada.  I read that you can even make a 'virtual' cattle guard by painting alternating dark and light lines across a road.  However, they say that once one animal discovers that they are being faked out and cross, all the other animals will as well.  Probably not safe to try to trick them.

You can drive across it with no problem.  Your vehicle's tires make a bumping noise as you go across.  Humans can walk across it with not much of a problem.  I remember as a kid trying to balance as I crossed a cattle guard.  Being small, I was a little scared that I'd lose my balance and fall, breaking my ankles in the process.  I made it across safely, however.

I vaguely remember a cattle guard somewhere at our farm, but don't remember where it was located.  It's long since been removed.  It may have been at the entrance to the old home place in front of the big live oak tree and pecan orchard.

Aside from keeping livestock from getting out, cattle guards are also great in one other regard.  If you are riding "shotgun" in a pickup truck, one of your duties is to get out and open the gate.  When the truck drives through, then you close the gate behind the truck and get back in the passenger seat.  Cattle guards make that job obsolete.  There's no need to close the gate.  You drive right on through.