About Us

Honey Creek Livestock Equipment is owned and operated by Asa Bowles and family. From left, Puppy, Stran, Asa, Kelbey, and Jasper.

After spending nine years on the road as a professional welder, Asa Bowles decided to return to South Greenfield and care for his growing herd of Angus-cross cattle.

“I spent the last three years in North Dakota and got tired of it,” said Bowles.

But he didn’t abandon welding altogether, either. He started building a particular type of corral panel in his farm shop, at first for his own use, but soon started making them to order. It was from that beginning that Honey Creek Livestock Equipment has grown.

“The main thing we make is a 24 ft free-standing panel; most are 10-12 ft long,” said Bowles. “It’s heavy, too, about 775 lbs.”

Bowles said his panels are intended for use in corrals that can be set up using a tractor, in either a permanent or temporary set up.

“Since fencing is no longer considered as ‘adding value’ to a property, building a new permanent fence doesn’t make sense in some situations,” said Bowles. “I originally intended these panels for use on rent-ground, but I’ve found plenty of folks are using them on ownground, too.” Other products now made by Honey Creek include standard gates, bow gates, and various lengths of fence panels, with custom sizing available, in five or seven rail options. They are also dealers for cattle chutes produced by R&R and Foremost.

“We basically try to have anything needed to set up a corral: chutes, alleys, panels; all of our gates come equipped with slam-latches, and we will even sell pipe and fencing components,” said Bowles.

Among the things that set Honey Creek’s products apart is that Bowles builds his fencing using new pipe made from new steel, not pipe that has previously been used in an oil field.

“You never know what’s been through it, either crude oil or salt water — it’ll save you a little bit of money, but will rust out or rot out from the inside a lot quicker,” said Bowles. “It’s also not good for your health or that of your animals to work with it.”

Bowles said that what sets his operation apart from other corral equipment manufactures is that he is both a professionally trained welder and a cattleman himself.

“Those aren’t exactly common qualifications you’ll find together, and hardly any other supplier that I know of has that background,” said Bowles. “What I’m building, I’m using myself — I’ve even gotten our vendors to change a few things in their designs thanks to testing I’ve done. For those wanting to set up a corral but not entirely sure what they want or need, Honey Creek has premade kits available from a 20-head set up (starting at $3,970) all the way to a 150-head set up ($11,010), which includes more extra features than the basic kit.

“These things are so flexible that you can do just about anything with them, and they’re built heavier than most” said Bowles. “We’ve even built a few used to corral bison.”

Bowles said that what started as his farm shop has grown to have four employees, focused entirely on the corral equipment products. Demand has been so strong that Bowles said they can’t keep up, so while they try and accommodate special requests, they don’t do hardly any custom work.

“We’ll build basically anything someone needs with what we already make, and will do some basic customizations,” said Bowles. “We just don’t have time to do more than that.”

As for the future, Bowles said that he has plans to expand the shop to a new location with better visibility, and to expand his offerings by including t-posts and wire fencing, products not currently offered by Honey Creek. His goal is be a one-stopshop for fencing and corral supplies.

“We’re trying to get something that was different from everybody else,” said Bowles. “People can buy everything they need from me, we want to be that one-stop-shop.”