Automatic Cow Killer

[Dry Paratroopa]

I decided to make an automatic tanned leather producer, and I need something powered by redstone that can kill a cow. I've been thinking about having a rapid-fire arrow dispenser (run by a clock that would be frozen until a Detector picked up the adult cow, which is why is has to be powered by redstone), and I would like to know if there's a more efficient way. I'll provide a picture of the facility when I can get back on to the computer it's on (some people have siblings to share with).

[jorgebonafe]

... A saw...?

[Dry Paratroopa]

That doesn't work for two reasons:
1. There is no way to get an adult-detecting system on a saw with the space I have (human-size), as it is set up so that the cow is standing on a Hopper and falls down from directly above.
2. I currently use a saw to kill it and it hasn't worked. Yes, it is powered.

[Dextralus]

Other options for automated murder off the top of my head: piston-based crushing machines, a drowning trap, vanilla fire charges, hibachi. Having said that man, I've never even tried to automate a system that works quite like yours - the usual process is to detect the adult and then deposit it in the killing room.

A more ornate solution presents itself if you have the space: make a "tower" (in reality, your cow-sized container room) with floors hooked up to a five-minute timer. Every five minutes have the floor drop out and deposit it in the container below - this will obviously have to start from the bottom and go up.

[RaustBlackDragon]

That doesn't work for two reasons:
1. There is no way to get an adult-detecting system on a saw with the space I have (human-size), as it is set up so that the cow is standing on a Hopper and falls down from directly above.
2. I currently use a saw to kill it and it hasn't worked. Yes, it is powered.

That'll be useless, sadly. Babies and adults have the same hitbox, so using that to sort them won't work at all.


EDIT: Sorry, my mistake, I misunderstood the comment completely :)

I only leave the message because the point might be useful in the process anyway.

[Itamarcu]

That doesn't work for two reasons:
1. There is no way to get an adult-detecting system on a saw with the space I have (human-size), as it is set up so that the cow is standing on a Hopper and falls down from directly above.
2. I currently use a saw to kill it and it hasn't worked. Yes, it is powered.

1. So make a baby/adult sorting machine using the fact babies can't jump
2. The saw probably doesn't kill them because they don't touch it all the time. Instead, reroute the animals to the saw using water, and the water will constantly make the cows hit the saw.

[PhongGamer]

I don't know if this will help, but it's something I thought of earlier in the week after spending quite a while on an breed-to-feather/meat chicken farm. With that farm I depended on egg laying to determine whether or not a chicken had reached adulthood. So after I finished with that project I got to thinking about a farm for breed-to-slaughter of other animals. The only simple, non-redstone reliant method I could think of for timing it was to, once again, rely on a chicken laying an egg.

So let's say you set up your cow processing facility. If you were to include a pair of chickens that you breed as well, you could have the chick included in your batch of to-be slaughtered animals. Once that chick grows up and lays an egg, the cows should have matured as well. I believe baby animals take approximately 20 minutes to go from birth to adulthood. And I believe chickens lay eggs around every 8 minutes. So you're looking at about a 30 minute per slaughter cycle, but the 8 minute egg laying timer would provide plenty of leeway for the cows to mature. Of course it also adds a bit of wasted time into the cycle, but I feel that the egg laying is reliable enough to use for something like this.

EDIT: I wanted to also add that while messing with the chicken farm I found that using a sticky piston block crusher to kill the chickens seemed to work better than saws. I had set it up so that once an egg was laid, that triggered the crusher, and then once the feathers/meat dropped through the powered hopper, that told the crusher to reset to it's non-killing state.

[Dry Paratroopa]

Okay, except I said it needed to be powered by redstone. Doesn't matter, since the Detector spotted the baby and activated the dispenser (I went ahead with my plans since compact apparently doesn't mean anything to you guys), and I have pictures now. I just can't seem to upload them to the website.

[Mason11987]

Okay, except I said it needed to be powered by redstone. Doesn't matter, since the Detector spotted the baby and activated the dispenser (I went ahead with my plans since compact apparently doesn't mean anything to you guys), and I have pictures now. I just can't seem to upload them to the website.

Try imgur, I'd like to see how you did it.

[Itamarcu]

Okay, except I said it needed to be powered by redstone. Doesn't matter, since the Detector spotted the baby and activated the dispenser (I went ahead with my plans since compact apparently doesn't mean anything to you guys), and I have pictures now. I just can't seem to upload them to the website.

...Did you know that you can cause Gearboxes to deactivate/activate using redstone?
Almost everything in Minecraft can easily be activated using redstone. Some of the stuff just not directly.


Also, PhongGamer's way of doing it was using pistons. What was the problem with that?


EDIT:

Oh, and use either Imgur as Mason suggested or Photobucket.

[Dry Paratroopa]

Never mind. I got it to work using a small jump detector and the dispensers. I'll show the pics when the entire facility is complete and it'll be in the Show Your Builds topic. This one can be locked, please.

[Splee999]

You could also try just building a trap that uses fall damage to smash its victims. Maybe you could even set up a double fall where all the cows fall into one pen. Then, you could let the adults escape to a different level by jumping. The babies would be stuck in the primary pen. Then you could just use another fall, saws, lava, or something else to finish off those adults once and for all.