I am looking into getting into cattle hauling.

I grew up in a suburb about an hour south of San Francisco. I'm a 4th generation rancher by blood, but my family lost the ranch before I was born and I grew up in the big city. Never saw a cow up close until I started hauling em. I always was fascinated by ranching though and the more I learn about it the more I love it. I'm considering a career in ranching when I'm done bull hauling full time (likely when the E-log mandate occurs).

I've been doing it for a little bit now and I love it, but I'm a little crazy and I get off on the rush of it. When a cow turns on ya inside the trailer and tries to run your ### over that adrenaline rush is hard to match. Their is nothing here to keep you safe, but your own merit and i love that. I had one turn on me and try running back down the chute as I was loading the belly a couple days ago and I never knew I could jump over a 6' wall so #### fast LOL.

our trucks our fast as hell. Mine will run well into the triple digits and shes not too bad to look at either, but the money over here isn't worth #### and the shiny truck doesn't count for much when your at the end of a 1700 mile run just looking forward to a nap. If you don't do it for the love of it then your better off not doing it all. You can't half ### this when your having an off day. They'll run your ### over just the same as any day. Failure to succeed here IS a matter of life or death.

Getting into the industry with no experience will be extremely difficult, but as the old hands die off and retire and few of us young guns have any interest in this work their is an extreme shortage of proficient bull haulers. If you convince a man you could be one of those proficient bull haulers you'll get an in... eventually.

I got at least 20+ no's before I got one yes and I moved 2,000 miles from California to the heart of cattle country in South Dakota. I'm also 22 yrs old though so insurance was a bigger problem than anything. Many of them told me they thought I'd make a great hand, but their insurance company wouldn't let them hire me.

I asked the man I'm working for now why he hired a dumb kid from CA to run a bull rack long haul and he told me he thought I'd be a good hand. I told him in our talk "I like a challenge" and those words seemed to really stand out to him. He told me I got the job for you then and the rest is history .

 

We all do what we do for different reasons and do it different ways. I will be the first to admit that I like a pimped out one of a kind Pete, with big CAT power, and lots of gears. I miss the days of running with several cow trucks in a line steadily over coming everything on the road lookin out for each other. My 359 will turn heads for sure even though it's a standard hood. The big hood 359 was left to me by a man that was considered to be one if the best in this business. I can pull up somewhere new and old hands there still know that MABEL was EZ's ride. We run for some of the biggest outfits in the cow business King Ranch, and the 6666 know as the triangles. None of that makes me a Bullhauler. I guess I have to much pride in what I do, it ain't rocket science for sure. I am not wanting to step on nobodies toes but I do want to give some advice to a couple young guys take it or leave it.

Speed kills, it will buy you a ticket on a fast train to hell in a hurry. There is a time and a place to have fun please learn it. There is a time due to conditions to be pushed to it. Be aware they are coming before you load that wagon so you are in control of where it happens. Don't trash around or oversleep then use a fast truck to compensate for it. Don't show out in a crowd to look cool, Rollin low and slow is way cooler. If you gotta run fast keep your brakes cool and #### good rubber on the road know your ride is right the only way to know for sure is take care of it yourself.

 

I really don't think you'll make it doing what we do. The money and fast trucks like said before aren't worth #### when your pushing as hard as we are sometimes. You gotta have a love for it in you or you'll just fall apart when the going gets tough and the going is usually tough doing this.

I came from pulling flatbeds,step decks and RGN's OD and I'll tell you that this is way more dangerous. It doesn't take much to get yourself killed or maimed here and open decking is fairly dangerous as it was.

-A cow can stomp on the counter balance as you open it and shatter your face. Wouldn't be the first time.

-obviously the cows can maim or kill you in a # of ways from running your butt over to squeezing your guts out of you pushing you against a wall or between a gate and the wall and a million other ways

-These trailers loaded are extremely top heavy and they fly like kites in the wind. Doesn't take too much of a mistake to put one on it's side especially when your pushing hard.

When your dealing with these kind of risks the money is worthless. You have to love it one way or another. I really don't see any kind of a love or passion for it that IMO you need to succeed.

 

Aww it ain't that bad, I have seen several really overweight 40 to 60 year old gals do it. Seen a couple very petite very shiney gals do it too. Don't nobody tell miss wore out bout the hot chicks that drive cow trucks she may try remove my yard pass lol

 

Calling MRS wore out now.... lmao

 

If you are running your own truck and trailer being governed would be up to you no matter what kind of trailer you pull.

 

Ain't that the truth. Seen plenty of bad truck wrecks with a bunch of bent up iron, some pretty bad bent up bodies too. I'll be the first one to go motorin along at a pretty good clip, but I'll also admit just last night I was crawling down a hill and canyon (maybe more?) last night at about 30mph for 20 miles or so in a snow storm, after about a 14 hour day when things started to go south on me luck wise. Most of that road (Montana 86 into Bozeman) was spent with me asking myself "Where the **** am I?" followed by "Why the **** am I here?". And that was just pulling my empty lowboy no load of cows to worry about.

I have to agree about having cow sense though. I've never pulled a bull rack, but have been around cows helping friends most of my life, raised a few show steers and kept raising some for my own beef. Have a bunch of 'good old boy' friends who either have pulled or currently pull them, and I'm pretty sure I could get the hang of it in about a week. Not saying a guy can't learn how cows work, but it would sure help to have someone mentor ya. I was at one branding a few years ago and my friend was making a downhill skiing movie, and for some reason the ranch's branding was a part of the movie. Branding about 80 calves that day was sure something with about half of us having cow sense, and the other half being the closest to cattle as they'd ever been, and that was just in corrals with claves. Now imagine something like that going on in the confines of a bull rack with full grown cows...

 

Cows are already jumpy enough in that situation without adding a bunch of loud talking, fast walking, jumpy humans to the mix.