livestock?

This was going to be my first venture into buying my own truck and trailer. I went along with my dad who has been hauling cattle for 30+years. I went with him for about 2 months and let me tell you, it's not glamorous by any means. Yelling and buzzing to try and get them to stay on their feet on long hauls. Freezing temps, you gotta check them to make sure they stay standing up. Same in the heat. If one won't get up, you have to find a livestock yard somewhere to unload all of them to get the one that's down, up. Not fun. Fall is where you make your money, but legally? No. Take a nice, slow 600-800 mile drive from the Midwest up to montana or Wyoming ect. to load that next day. Then, IF, you can get loaded right away in the morning, then it's not horrible. 99% of the time, we would leave montana at 3-5pm and have a 16-17hour straight back. Then after you unload, you gotta head back for another round. Pretty good way to make 8-10 grand a week, but it's also a good way to kill yourself. So, with that being said, not for me.

 

Btw, I'm not experienced by any means with this. This was just my experience with it. Lol

 

I see more and more asking about hauling livestock. That could be a good or bad thing. I will say it's not for the timid, weak, or weary. If it's money your interested in then you won't ever be a top shelf hand. Although money does come with being top shelf, so does cool.

 

There's so many people doing it now that the rates are beat down bad. Guys are running just to make their payments. I enjoy working with the cattle and my fiancé and I raise cattle but to be honest I don't feel the money is there anymore to justify running hard and getting little sleep. For 2014 I was at $2.24 a mile for every mile I put on my odometer. January I was at $2.15. I haven't sat still long enough to figure February yet.

 

You show up to wore out's house and if he doesn't run you off he let's you apply for a job.

 

Have you ever seen the horror that a head of lettuce has to endure. That's truly inhuman

 

Plants have no central nervous system or a brain in order to interpret signals from outside stimuli. Thus, no pain can be felt by plants. If it were possible, they would try to get away when exposed to fire or anything of the like.

 

Uh it was a joke........

 

Yeah. I get that. I was joking too. Being sarcastic.

 

Please enlighten us.

 

This is a typical week. Somewhere between 1 and 5 am Sunday morning fire up and go load. This is after getting up at 6 am on Saturday to start working on the truck, it must be gone over every week with a fine tooth comb. With cattle hauling there is no repowering a load. You cannot unhook a loaded cow trailer as the dog house is to weak without the truck under it for support. The only way to do it is back another trailer up behind it and jump them from one to the other, there is nothing good about that. So with that said you can see why nothing can be put off as you can't afford to be broke down or put out of service. Not that I have ever seen a loaded rig get an inspection but it could happen.

So leave out early Sunday and go load either a couple miles from home (northeast Arkansas) or run up to the boothill. Take that load to Hereford, usually 83 to 88K gross deliver at champion early Sunday evening, about 6 to 8pm depending on when and where you left from. Soon as you unload, run on over to San Angelo and go to bed till daylight. You can sleep late but there won't be any breakfast left and Miguel gets sore if you don't eat. Depending on how many trucks is there dictates how long you are there, so after you get your load of fats it's off to BTE outside Stillwater Ok. Unload and run straight to OKC stockyards from there it's anybodies guess where you go usually a pound gain farm with shoddy loading facilities and idiots that will get you hurt unloading cause they get happy with the hot shot. The only way to move cattle fast is slowly and quietly as possible.

So it's probably early Wednesday by this time and you need to be in West Plains with a wash out to haul fats to Cargill in Joslin Ill. By the time you are loaded and out of there it's 10 to around midnite, just be glad you ain't going the other way and having to wait for the Cabool scales to close. Unload in Joslin some time Thursday and book it over to Lexington Ky to get your ride back toward the house with conditioned calves to be fed out at small feed lots that really just amount to farms but they don't own the cattle they just feed them out and are paid on the total pounds gained. It's usually late Friday or early Sat when I roll back in.

Loading can be really bad depending on when and where your loading. Let just one turn around on the ramp and all of them will try. Keep in mind you are in the trailer banging gates when loading or unloading it's handy to be a fast climber. The floors are kinda slick when dry imagine when they are wet. The driver also has to make sure the count is correct never trust the pen hands as you come up short it's a bite out of your pay. I usually walk the rail to get my count. The entire time they are on your trailer they are getting sick and loosing weight, not good for who there going to or you if you are getting paid by the ton or 100 weight. This time of year when it's cool at night and warm during the day you may have to rearrange your winter kit couple times, get them too hot then cool them off too quick you have got trouble. If one gets down in the trailer you have got to get them up end of story. Sucks winching a dead cow out of the trailer.

A cow trailer is like pulling a parachute, they can be top heavy and easy to turn over. If you drop off the shoulder don't over correct or your in for a ride. Keep torque on the drive line in a curve, pump it up slow bring it back down the same way. You got 22 hours from the time you walk them on to get tgem off or find a set of rest pens for them with food and water for 12 hrs. If you find a set they not cheap so it bites your pay. I only run regional really, the boys running long haul got it worse. Although I have run a 1000 miles a day for several days straight more than I can remember. Like anything it is feast or famine so you will go from running your tale off to nothing in the blink of an eye. Bad news travels fast and far good news never spreads. One good uh oh and it will be hard to find a load for sure. This is really just the beginning, but I have bored myself with this long ### post. Maybe it will enlighten you a little any way