Muck Boots 'n' Slickers - Life of a Livestock Hauler

Now, a most levels, it is all about money and or/political power. From city councilman to state rep, to senate to president of our country and in the military/industrial complex. Money gets power and politics keeps hold of it. We are a sorry example of what used to be a great country; populated by willing people, to do things right and honestly.

(A man calls Bill Gates. Tells him.. Have your daughter marry my son. Bill ask why?
Man says: Because he is the vice president of the world bank. Bill says well yes.
The man calls the president of the world bank: Tells him.. Appoint my son as your vice president...
The President ask why? The man says: Because he is Bill Gates son in law. President says Well, yes.
That is how politics works...)

 

You are so spot on.

 

Well it is getting close to Tee Time.
Beautiful morning. No DOT here.

No livestock rig either.

 

Hope no livestock owners enroute...
Sound logic…

Man 1: Hits Memphis-Ark bridge, gets stalled behind a man driving about 20 head of hogs across. Works his way up to the man 2 slowly and ask: Where are you taking the hogs?

Man 2 said: Little Rock…

Man 1 asks , Why?

Man 2 says: 51 cents a pound over there…

Man 1 says: Well you can get 48 cents right here at S. Mphs Stockyards…

Do you realize how much time it is going to take to drive them to Little Rock?

Man 2 replies: Yes, but what is time to a hog?

 

South Memphis stockyards that’s a place I ain’t thought about in long dang time lol

 

My first cow haul was from West Point to S. Memphis SY in an 18 foot KB5, IH stock rack. Up 78 till Lamar, on up to Allied Feed Mills, take a left onto S. Parkway, think till Trigg, then there.
Next and only other time I was there was with J.T. Garrard with a preloaded d/deck of sheep.
My experience there is posted on here way back. Maybe U or @MACK E-6 can find it and regale us.
Clarify..
Was junior in high school, working the Friday sale at West Point Sale Barn's ring then. Got all checked up and someone had a few to go Memphis and not a tlr load. "Roger, can you run these up there, pay you (Do not remember)" Is a pigs ### pork, sure, I will do that. All I had to do was drive to Memphis and back (150 each way then) find the yards, unload get signed, drive back,walk home, get to school by 8:20 Monday...Duck soup and I had 2 ducks...

 

Running cabins up through MI, there was a DOT officer that had an eye like a hawk for cabin trailers… which, I get it, there are some guys that run no CDLs, no permits and the whole 9 yards. We always ran legal, as far as that went. Anyway, guy went by Short Dick, and he would not let you go without a violation if he had to make it up. He’d give tickets for not having license plate lights on a semi and stupid stuff like that. One of my brothers friends had 4 rigs running up that way almost every day, and like clockwork, he’d nail 3-4 a week. They discovered that if they called his headquarters and complained, it pushes off an officer’s promotions, so they started doing that every time. Said now they can drive past waving and he won’t pull them over.

 

Found the South Memphis/Sheep fiasco... Herewith...
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@pete781693 said...
I guess those are good reasons not to haul sheep. I have only hauled bovine creatures and I guess it will remain so.

JR..Hauling is good. Stay low, well padded, don't lurch like hogs. It is at the point of debarkation that you find out a lot about a sheep's nature.

I was in at Starkville. There was a double deck trailer of sheep sitting in the yard. Jimmy Garrard (dispatcher) says: " Hook that trailer of sheep and run them up to South Memphis Stockyards for me, got nothing better for you right now." So I hook, connect lines and lights, an look over my woolies. 34 foot trailer, one cut gate in middle of each deck.. Like a pasture... Scenic, all we needed was dark and 3 wise men, almost biblical.
Pulled out and off to Memphis. Wheeled in, opened the doors, backed up to the combo chute. Went in the barns side gate, down to my chute, opened it to the alley and an empty pen. Be done here in no time. Heard a voice shout that "be with you in a minute" as I climbed up to the top. So I open the inside gate and step back. No sheep stream out...OK, bend down and reach in (all them hovered up to the cut gate like chickens from a hawk) grab a hind leg and drag out to toss down the chute. Turned him loose, mid throw and he beat me back inside. Sheepherders drive sheep. So I crawl in to get behind to run them out. I'm not wide enough with open arms to shoo them forward, they just split and encircle me as I crawl out. The voice I had heard arrives in a little old bowlegged man in Stetson and worn boots. Ask me if I want him to "Get the Goat"? Told him right off in a direct way that I did not need no #### goat, just needed to get these sheep off. He kinda nods and says "I'll go get the goat." I try another sheep or two tossed and getting nowhere.

Hold up , son. The old man has returned, steering a LARGE billy goat by one of his about 10 inch horns. He open the alley gate enough for the goat to get thru and boots him away. This goat simply clippity clops up the chute; by me standing and goes into the trailer, roots around thru the sheep. Then he turns and strolls out and all the sheep follow along like on a lead line. I know a good thing when it is right in front of me, so I scramble up and undo the cut gate, swing it back as Mr. Billy is returning to out the rest of the top deck.
Old man says " Get the bottom open and we will get them off." So I did and they did I was really sold on teamwork after that.

Still with Garrard; but year or so later, I had run a load of Holsteins from Waukesha to Miami and called in to come home. Jimmy had a "few"
hi dollar sheep in South GA (do not remember the location) Just inside GA/FL line. Few was about 10 of them so gated up snug in nose to cut gate pen of trailer and whisked them on to Lex, KY. Some horse man wanted to balance out his show farm with some sheep. Got there, hit his chute opened the cut gate and walked up to them standing there. Tuned around slowly and walked out with them following. That was all of my sheep hauling experience.

 

That 'ol goat earned his keep a thousand times over.

 

I’ve tried to tell @Oxbow a hunerd times that goats are a good thing— he must’ve had some kind of a traumatic experience with them cause he still don’t believe me