Truckin'

Years ago we lost a good deal of money at the hands of an unscrupulous cattle trucker who switched our cows with his own and sold our heavier, larger animals as his. We got the smaller check. As cows aren't weighed at the farm and he wouldn't tag them we had no way to prove this. However eventually he switched a huge 1400-lb cow for an 800-lb one and we fired him and bought a trailer.

We hauled our own ever since. However, we loaned our trailer to a neighbor, his barn burned, and the trailer was damaged in the fire. Recently the metal began breaking down very rapidly...so we decided that it was not safe to use and hired a different trucker to haul a cow to the sale yesterday.

She was a big one, one of mine naturally, my Encore cow out of the Trixy family. I really, really hated to sell her in the first place. We just couldn't get her pregnant and she was mean as a snake....bills to pay so she had to go.

First the trucker couldn't get backed up to the door of the barn. Mind you, Alan, at twenty, can back a bumper pull stock trailer in, one try, on ice, snow, you name it. ...I think he could prolly do it blind folded. The ground was clear, the barnyard all scraped and nice .....This guy had a goose neck and couldn't get it anywhere near right.

He finally set up with his open door out into the barn aisle so the cow had to turn and go around it and squeeze through a little bitty gap to clamber into his filthy, stinking, wet, slippery mess of a trailer. I got the boss to make him pull out a little because I knew she wouldn't do it. It would have been hard to load a show cow that way, let alone a gigantic loony-tune like Encore (she ended up weighing a few pounds under 1500.)

Then I asked him to let me throw some sand on the trailer...he had mats and it was just a morass, wet, obviously slippery. I hate to make a cow ride thirty miles sliding around like they were on a skating rink.

He flat out refused! I mean the sand was right there. The shovel was right there. I would have done the work so he didn't have to!

He said, "Oh, I had a cow go down there this morning...she got right up...." Patronizing as heck. What would a woman know about loading cows anyhow?

I was so mad I could have spit. Of course when we brought her down the aisle, the damnfoolidiot trucker got right out in front of her waving his cane. So....she wouldn't go around the door and jumped up in the stall with my beautiful Broadway, my very favorite cow in the world, just diagnosed pregnant and doing no harm. And proceeded to bang the heck out of her.

Getting Encore out and on that truck wasn't pretty. She didn't want to go, she was a lot bigger than we are and the trucker got her all stirred up and mad.... I didn't blame her a bit.

And then he wouldn't tag her. So there we were...once again trusting that we would get paid for our big cow and not somebody else's little one.

As soon as that trailer door swung shut, I just stomped off to the house fuming. Man was I mad. The boss hurried through his work and went right on over to the sale barn and stayed and watched her sell so we were sure to get the right one. Kids and I did the night chores without him...which isn't really all that big a deal. She did sell right and we got our own check and not somebody else's...only brought 44 cents a pound, which was a good bit less than I was hoping for, but that's an auction for you.

I 'll tell you what though..... We are either patching up that old Corn Pro or we are finding a used stock trailer. When the boss and I load cows, we set up gates, we put sand in the trailer (which is backed up right square to the door) and on the barn floor and we are quiet, and quick and in the right place at the right time. It has been years since we had any rodeos loading. The cows go down to the door and jump in and we close the door...nuff said.....We even got the big, horned, beef steer on the trailer last week without any fanfare, although I admit we were worried about him. There is no reason to do it any other way, except laziness or sheer, screaming, incompetence. I will not go through that again....ever.....

So if you hear of a used trailer for a reasonable price...stock style, give me a shout. I had all I wanted of truckers yesterday.