Arrest warrants issued for owner, truck driver of horses in trailer crash

1/5/08
Chicago Tribune, United States
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,2933255.story

I have no clue about hauling livestock. I am sure that there are rules involved as to how much you can cram into a trailer.... but how do you figure what's to cramped? I've seen alot of local cattle haulers, stuffed so full, that the cows looked very uncomfortable and happy.
But, how was this guy, who wasn't a driver, suppose to know how to haul live stock? And the driver, just had an accident..... not like either one of them meant any harm to me.
I'm not saying to cram them all in the trailer.... I'm just saying, I don't think either one of them, meant any harm at all to the horses, let alone wanted them to die in a wreck. They where BELGIUMS...... no body in their right mind, is going to want to ruin the value of them at auction. I don't know about other parts of the country, but here in Horse country.... Kentucky that is..... People inspect every nook and cranny of a horse before they even consider buying it. So I attribute what happened to bad judgement, and ignorance on both the owner, and the drivers part, but I think they are both innocent as far as meaning any harm goes. I think the charges are a bit harsh, expecially considering the fact that in some places such as California, we're expected to freeze to death in our sleeper berths, or die of a heat stroke, while animals, (I love animals, I just think humans should be considered as well!) have to be as comfortable as possible in the trailer of the same truck.

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Ignorance of the law.....

Whether or not it is legal to haul these horses in this type of trailer, if they had 59 Belgians in the trailer, then it had to be overloaded by a considerable margin. A belgian is a huge draft horse, and I would guess that they average 3-400 pounds more than the average horse. So if we assume a weight of 1200-1400 pounds per horse, then there is no way that this guy was within the weight rules.

Aniimals are tricky to load and haul, because they are hard to know the weight of, and they are capable of movement which can upset the vehicle. If he had 1/2 the horses in the top of the trailer, then it was probably top heavy as well as overweight.

Well, the two yeahoo's feel they are not guilty, so they should hire M Vic's (sp) atty.,

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"LilTruck"

A regular horse can go 1200 to 1400 pounds. I'v owned clydesdales and when they say the horses were close to 6 foot tall they mean at the back, add another three to four feet for the neck and head. that's 9 to 10 foot tall. Nw that is on the large side granted but I'v seen them that big. although most were probably in the 7 to 8 foot area. Regardless, a cattle wagon is about 13.5 foot tall and you can probably subtract a foot for distance from the ground and a half foot or more for the upper deck floor(which it's amazing didn't collapse fillled with 1800 pound horses) so you have less than 6 feet meaning the horses wouldn't even be able to stand up even with there heads and necks down(which will kill a horse if they can't raise there heads for too long)
This hapens more than most people know since the need for progesterone (most likely misspelled) is so high. It's a substitue for the famale hormones lost in menapause. I don't know if this is what these horses were used for but Belgians are the number one source for it. They have these horses tied in stalls full time, pregnant, with bags straped to them to collect the urine which is what the hormones are refined from. There is a serious over abundance of these horses because of this type of farming and it's need to keep the horses pregnant all the time