FMCSA says no ELD for Livestock haulers until further notice

Oddly enough, there’s a severe shortage of people willing to wake up smelling like cow #### every day. Or, sit in an open field/range waiting for said cows to show up.

So the team idea just cut the number of available trucks in half.

 

And then the cost to ship critters is going to double,and the cost of your meat will go up, and sont give the "shipping is only a small part of the expense"bs. I know cow haulers who put 4000 miles on like nothing in a week with just one driver.

 

Ding ding ding ding......

Dont forget the farmers out in Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska with their hand already out telling their Senators "Hey I need subsidies now, you have to let my shipping costs drop".

It is a bunch of bullshippie. Allowing them paper is saying "Go ahead and lie so we can just act like your legal".

I hope the scales light their ### up being as they have so few log books to check now. Audits should be fun as well

 

I asked our local DOT guy...who's also my neighbor...about the livestock and ag exemptions.
He said that his office is already gearing up for the audits. The people still running paper will be easy targets.
California already has special extended HOS for people doing agricultural hauling but, as a rule, the exemption applies only from initial point of harvest to the place of first processing.

 

Well when it comes to relay drivers it's simple. You cannot un hook a loaded cattle pot. The truck supports the nose, un hook it and it falls.


When it comes to teams there isn't enough money for a team. You spend the first part of the week Dickin around with short stuff. Usually lots of wait time then load up and head west late in the week. So without a salary type position it just doesn't work



Bigger carriers hauling livestock that's funny ####. Its hard enough to train a hand to drive much less be a cowboy. Improper handling techniques of the animals will get your ### black balled 99 percent of the places you go. It will get your ### kicked in 75 percent of the places you go along with being sent away empty. Whether they are goin to slaughter or are registered Angus high dollar springing heifers doesn't matter.


Granted I do not have the answers to this problem. I will say those that know stink about it do not either. To sit and cry that it's not fair is childish. You think it's easy go get a pot and a handful of it who knows you might just like it.

 

Good for them. At least one segment of the industry didn’t get ELDS pushed down theire throats.

 

Teams can work for the operations doing the long haul stuff week after week. But for the majority of cattle haulers the money isn’t there to bring someone on and pay them to sit around for half the week because you need them for one load. Or take them with you only to find out the calves are heavier than expected so now they’re going to a different yard that you can legally get to by yourself.

Any kind of rest pens would have to be sanitary and cleaned after every load to avoid contamination and sickness from other herds. That’s why regular auction barns being used for resting or switching trucks is a terrible idea. They have every sickness in the area in them.

As stated above, dropping a loaded cattle trailer to swap out is a terrible idea. And even if you could do it I doubt many owner ops would just let some other guy take off with their trailer.

The big boys at the top wouldn’t be the ones bearing the cost. They only pay to have the cattle hauled once, maybe twice. It would be the ranchers getting hit as they’re the ones paying to ship the cattle their whole life up until they get on the trailer to go to the plant. Cattle don’t just stay in one place until they go to slaughter.

Now all that being said, my brother still hauls cattle and has had an ELD in his truck for the last three months just because nobody knew what was going to come down from the FMCSA. He doesn’t do the 1500 mile runs, but he has plenty of 1000 mile days during the week and so far using the available ag exemption he rarely has any issues running out of hours.

 

What about bees?

They can't stay still either. And who wants bees parked next to them for 10 hours?

 

That’s what seems toughest for most to understand about livestock. It’s not anything like warehousing or drop yards. Pickup sales usually late in the evenings early in the week, occasional transfers from the field to the sale barn. Then finally Thursday load for west. Who wants to sit around waiting to work on Thursday since you aren’t getting a lot of miles til then?

Most of the long stuff out of here is usually 1000 miles or less, usually 6-800. Unless you’ve got two back to back from a big order buyer, not enough money for a second hand.

 

"Transporters of livestock and insects..."

- Livestock and Insect Haulers