When it comes to animal and worker safety, there is no room for error when designing equipment.
Moly Manufacturing is one of the industry leaders in livestock handling equipment, having set the standard for designing safe equipment for the operator as well as the animal. Safety takes such a priority in the company’s designs that anyone in the family—from the first generation to the third—can safely operate equipment out of harm’s way. And as a family business, Moly recognizes the importance of keeping family members safe on the ranch.
Jon Mollhagen founded Moly Manufacturing in 1988 as a fourth-generation rancher who saw a need for improved and more cost-efficient equipment on his own ranching operation. His background growing up on a row crop and cow-calf operation in the Smoky Hills of Kansas and fixing ranch equipment lent him the knowledge to begin building his own equipment. The first piece of equipment he designed and built became the first product to be sold by Moly Manufacturing, the Trans-Corral. The rest is history, with the company now offering a whole portfolio of custom-built equipment products.
“We are a major innovation company,” Lacey Mollhagen, Jon’s daughter and fifth-generation rancher, told WLJ. “We don’t see things that other people are doing and then rebuild it—we build things that we see need improvement or can be improved. And everything we build we test ourselves on our own ranch for sometimes years before we ever put a product out to market.”
The priority for each piece of equipment built is that it is safe. “Safety is always our main goal,” Mollhagen explained. “It’s a family business and nobody wants anyone to get hurt, especially not your family. So, safety is always the main factor on everything that we do.”
In addition to maintaining the family business and shipping equipment to more than 60 countries across the world, the Mollhagen family runs a commercial black Angus cow-calf herd and also farms.
Lacey and her brother, Blaze, help run the manufacturing business’s day-to-day operations, while Jon continues to design all of the equipment with what Lacey calls “an unreal natural ability and talent.” Something that sets Moly apart from other equipment manufacturers is everything is custom designed and built to the individual or operation ordering the equipment.
“Everything we build is already sold, so we are very unique in that we don’t manufacture the same things every day,” Mollhagen said. “Every day is a very unique day and every day there are different products out.”
State-of-the art equipment
Moly Manufacturing’s original product, the Trans-Corral, was the first hydraulic portable corral in the U.S. Mollhagen said the corral was wildly popular, and Jon won several awards from magazines and trade shows for its design. Following the corral’s success, Jon was inundated with requests from customers to build a hydraulic squeeze chute to pair with the corral. Thus, the SILENCER chute was designed.
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The chutes were a one-of-a-kind concept, with an emphasis on animal exit and operator safety. At the time of its creation, there was no lower hydraulic squeeze in chutes.
“If you don’t have body control, you don’t have head control,” Mollhagen said. “So, we nailed down how to get good body control with the lower hydraulic squeeze.”
The chute also has specific hydraulic neck bars that not only allow for better head control, but easier and safer access to vaccinate and perform other processes.
The SILENCER was put on the market in the early ’90s when the market was very saturated with chutes, and Mollhagen said at the time everyone told Jon not to get involved, as there was too much competition. “And he pretty much proved everyone wrong,” Mollhagen said.
The chute was so popular that the company ran out of time and space to keep building Trans-Corrals and turned their focus to building the SILENCER chutes.
The chute has hundreds of build configuration options and can be custom built to fit practically any type of operation.
“We are really specific,” Mollhagen said. “We want people to make sure they get the right equipment for their operation, so we really help them nail down specifically what they need and only sell them what they need.”
She added, “We’re very detail oriented to make sure that people get the right thing, and we aren’t just selling something.”
In addition to SILENCER chutes, Moly Manufacturing offers several other custom-built products. The remote-controlled TurretGate tub is a gate design that shuttles back through a turret and repositions behind animals, moving them forward.
“With the TurretGate, you never actually have to push a gate back into oncoming cattle,” Mollhagen explained. “You can always keep that forward flow, which is critical. A lot of people get injured in gates, which are high stress, high impact areas. Our goal with the TurretGate was to keep people out of those dangerous areas and give them a safe option to be able to move animals.”
In addition to being a safer option for operators, Mollhagen said using the gate also lowers stress on the animals. People are predators, so keeping people away from those areas keeps cattle calmer.
Moly has a new product, the All-Purpose Corral, which is a portable corral that makes it easy and safe to assemble a corral on the go. The corral includes added brace stabilizers, galvanized steel wheels, adjustable headgates and a lightweight design. The equipment can be loaded right up onto your bale bed truck and used for all kinds of livestock. Mollhagen personally uses it as a round pen for her horses, but added that she has seen it used for cattle, goats, llamas, ostriches, zebras—you name it.
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Equipment can be purchased on their own, but many customers combine products to create a comprehensive Flight Zone Avoidance System. The entire system is made up of Moly’s TurretGate, circular fencing, hydraulic loading chute, dual/single alleys, transitions and SILENCER chutes.
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A focus on safety, labor
There has been an increased interest in remote-handling equipment over the years. The first TurretGate went to Kansas State University close to two decades ago, Mollhagen said, because safety is typically a major concern for universities bringing in students from all kinds of backgrounds. Since then, the use of remote control grows day by day.
Today, in addition to safety, one of the other biggest reasons for using remote-handling equipment is because it reduces the amount of labor needed to process livestock. With labor issues rampant across the county, remote equipment becomes a more viable solution. Plus, the equipment lends the opportunity for family members of all ages to be involved with working livestock.
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“My 96-year-old grandma can sit in a truck and run a remote control and still help with cattle work,” Mollhagen shared with a laugh. “I know people that have their 7-year-old and their 9-year-old running the TurretGate for them. Kids are good with electronics, and they get to help, but they also get to learn so much and be part of the group.”
Moly Manufacturing is not just concerned with operator safety when using the equipment, but also animal welfare. Because of this, the company works with animal welfare experts to ensure equipment is also designed with the animal’s safety in mind. Jon works closely with Temple Grandin, and even traveled with her on an educational ag tour in South America.
The design process
As each piece of equipment is custom built to a customer’s operation, there is not a set timeframe for the design and building process. Mollhagen said the goal is to get equipment out the door in six weeks, “because when people need it, they need it.” The company can often do it faster, but sometimes outside factors like changing markets and prices affect the build time.
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Moly products are offered all across the country. “We’ve got a wonderful group of dealers and we also sell in-house,” she said. “So, there’s always that personal touch. You can always talk with a person and really learn about different options and things that will fit your operation.
“It’s just such a solid group of people and we’re blessed to be able to do what we love,” she concluded.
For those interested in Moly Manufacturing’s products, Mollhagen recommends visiting www.molymfg.com, watching videos on Youtube, or giving them a call at 785-472-3388.
