SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT
Priefert Celebrates 50 Years in Business
F
Article prepared by: Courtney Dyer, Assistant Director – Sales & Marketing Priefert Mfg.
ew families have influenced the livestock handling industry as significantly as the Priefert family from Mount Pleasant, TX. For half a century, the Prieferts have been designing, building, and marketing cattle handling equipment, and, in the process, changing the way the American rancher handles cattle. Marvin Priefert founded Priefert Manufacturing in 1964 with the invention of the first fully frontopening headgate. Little did he know, this first piece of ranch equipment would later become the foundation for one of the largest farm, ranch and rodeo equipment manufacturers in the world. Marvin Priefert shocked everyone who knew him when he bought a ranch and moved his family to the small east Texas town of Mt. Pleasant. Marvin, who had always been a Nebraska wheat farmer, had moved right into the heart of cattle country, where he set out to become a rancher. To gain experience handling livestock, Marvin
30
and his son Bill helped a neighbor work his herd. Seeing the inefficiencies in his neighbor’s guillotine-style steel headgate, Marvin decided to invent a headgate of his own. According to Bill, who was just 14 at the time, Marvin’s idea was that a headgate should close around both sides of the animal’s neck, then “fall completely open, be wide as a barn door, and let that cow walk out right through the front,” enticing the next animal to walk in behind her. Marvin built a prototype of his headgate, and confident in the design, built a second one for his neighbor. He went on to patent this invention as he had many others, but this time, Marvin took it a step further and decided to manufacture and sell the item himself. Thus, Priefert Manufacturing was born, with Marvin and Bill as its first two employees. As Priefert grew, Marvin began to expand his product line. Never satisfied with the status quo, Marvin was constantly reevaluating his designs to make improvements for efficiency and
ease of use. When he revised his squeeze chute design in 1981, he was the first in the industry to make the move to contoured sides on his chute to better fit the shape of cattle. In 1984, Marvin introduced another revolutionary advancement in the livestock industry: a panel featuring a chain connection with a “fishhook” top and J-leg frame. The chain connection was Marvin’s solution to many of the problems created by the traditional pin connection. Chains could easily be adjusted to flow the panels over uneven terrain, allowed for a tighter fit between panels, and even allowed for the connection of multiple panels at one junction. This “Premier Panel” was the first panel to effectively bridge the gap between cattle and horse panels, by offering a single panel that was tough enough for cattle, yet safe enough for horses. In 1988, Priefert was the first manufacturer to release an open-sided cattle sweep system. That same year, Priefert was also the first to release a double pivot calf table, a design Bill created based on the principles of leverage he had learned in his high