I think I will put my cell number on the back door of my stock trailer!

[justintime]

I am still shaking... but not as much as I was last week. Last week I headed to Des Moines to meet a fellow from Texas who had purchased 15 head from us last fall. This load was the last of the cattle to go there, and included two coming yearling bulls and an April/09 heifer. Seeing it was a small load I decided to take the 20' aluminum trailer rather than our bigger trailer. I loaded the two bulls in the front compartment and the heifer was put by herself in the back. I headed out early Sunday morning. After unloading at the US customs so that the USDA Vet could process them and read their ID tags, they were again loaded on the trailer. Normally I carry a couple small chains with padlocks and I lock the side door and the rear door so that no one can get into the trailer. I have heard of guys coming out of a gas station or a restuarant only to see their cattle walking down the street after some smart a$$ kids opened the trailer door. This time, I realized that I had taken the chains out of my truck and had left them hanging at home in the tack room of the barn. I had the  padlocks but no chains, so I padlocked the side door and the back door, which only left the sliding single door on the back not securely locked.

I stopped in Minot ND and had lunch and then headed towards Fargo ND. The weather was not real good as it was windy and snow was drifting across the highway. I drove for over 2 more hours and I decided to stop in Carrington, ND and fill my truck rather than wait until I got to Fargo.I was getting down in caffeine and I decided I needed to get a coffee.  As I pulled into the gas station, a truck pulled up beside me. I could see a lady waving at me so I put my window down. She yelled " Your back door is open and the heifer is looking out". I jumped out of the truck and ran as fast as my stumpy stiff little legs would carry me. The heifer was standing with her head out the door, as happy as she could possibly be. I closed the door and made sure it was securely locked. I went back to thank the people who had pulled up to tell me. They told me that they had pulled onto the highway 28 miles back and they could see that the door was wide open then. They said that the heifer had stood with her head out the door for most of the 28 miles they had followed me. It was drifting snow bad enough that they could not see if there was any on coming traffic to pull up beside me. I had seen their head lights for many miles, when I looked in my rear view mirror but I could  not tell that they were flashing their head lights because of the drifting snow.
The man driving said that he had followed fairly close behind me for a while, thinking that if he was close, the heifer would not jump out. After a few miles of doing this, he then decided that he maybe should back off as he might be in a major wreck if the heifer had jumped out and his truck went over top of her.

I have no idea how far I drove with the sliding back door wide open, but I know it was fully open for the last 28 miles. I may have been open for almost 300 miles, as I had not looked at the back of the trailer since I left the US customs.  I do not know how it got open, as I hardly ever use the sliding door in the back tailgate. In the 3 years I have had this trailer I doubt if it has been opened 3 times. I know that it was securely pinned when I left home, but don't know if it was opened at the US customs by mistake, as they were already unloading the cattle from the trailer when I got back there from the truck.

In any event, I think I used up a big bunch of luck that day, and it is very fortunate that the heifer has been super quiet since birth. She was one of those heifers that hardly needed to be halter broke even though she had never been worked prior to being weaned.

The couple who had followed me, commented that it was the longest 28 mile trip they had ever made to town. The man said, " you should really think about putting your cell phone number on the back door. You have your farm name on there, but it sure would have been nice to be able to phone you earlier." Not a bad idea.... I think I will do that !!

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Man-what a story-you should write a book about the adventures of farming in general O0

 

[farmboy]

so did you buy them a cup of coffee? good thing it wasn't some imbecile who thought she was acting like a dog with the head out the window 

 

[uluru]

All I can say is 'WOW"

 

[dutch pride]

We had a simalar although not a happy ending situation last year with our fair pigs. We had loaded them to tag them in and one of the kids forgot to lock the swinging gate at the back of the trailor. Two of the pigs fell off the trailor going 50 MPH. One we had to put down but the other survived with just a bunch of road rash and went on to win Grand Champion Barrow.

DLZ

 

[linnettejane]

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

Call me paranoid but I check every door on the trailer whether they are locked or not as well as tires, bearings and stock inside the trailer before I leave any stop along the road. I once saw a bull jump out of a trailer at a stop light in Louiville during the Beef Expo down there. I'm guessing he was "sale" broke as he took off through traffic and they were most of the rest of the day catching him. I pretty sure the lights and sirens of the cop cars were not much help. RW

 

[cpubarn]

JIT,

I probably have to take the blame for asking if you had any driving in snow stories when I learned you were driving to the expo.  I drove from Bemidji to Northern Iowa late Sunday, early Monday, just not fun driving anywhere this winter. 

So who has green growing grass?  I think I need a picture, or some type of "Virtual Grass".  Yes, I know someone will mis-interpret the type of grass, but heck, it is just time for spring...

Mark

 

[thats funny]

Hey, I'm from Minot.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

Hey, I'm from Minot.My hats off to both you guys-thats tough country O0

 

[Cattledog]

Having this happen is one of my biggest fears!  I drive everyone nuts because I always stop at the end of our lane and run back to double check the doors before heading out! 

 

[nkotb]

I now double and triple check the doors and hitch and chains on our trailers before we leave.  We were taking horses to the trainer one day and my wife had crawled under the bumper pull trailer to hook the tow chains, but could not get the ball hooked and didn't tell me.  I assumed since she was down there she had hooked everything and we headed down the road.  A couple miles down the highway we hit a bump, then the trailer started swaying a lot so I pulled over.  The hitch had come off the ball and the only thing that caught was one of the two tow chains.  To make matters worse, it tore up the jack dragging it down the road.  I was trying to figure out how to get the jack out of my pickup to work when two MODOT workers pulled up and just lifted the trailer, minus horses, back onto the ball.  Needless to say I am eternally grateful to the MODOT employees.

 

[justintime]

Hey, I'm from Minot.

Well, I am 100 miles straight north of Williston. Minot is 150 miles from here.

 

[justintime]

Hey, I'm from Minot.My hats off to both you guys-thats tough country O0

Quite frankly, I don't know if I could raise cattle in some of the areas that many of you live. At least our ground is frozen for most of the winter. Our cattle can stay clean with a little straw to lay on.  In the summer it can get hot but it always cools down at night.... every night.  High humidity occurs on occasion but a stretch of 3-5 days is a long one. We have sloppy pens and mud for about 2 weeks each spring, and I am about ready to book my dispersal by the time it starts to dry up. Our winters can be long and cold, but most of them are quite reasonable. I can think of no winter that would be longer than a winter of endless mud.  After driving 950 miles to Iowa, I am thankful I live where I do. We have some snow but not even close to a fraction of what many of you have. Our biggest weather issue that can create problems is wind. So far this winter we have not had much so even when it was cold, the cattle were comfortable. I have seen -40 degree days where the sun is shining and there is no wind where the cows are actually warm when you put your hands on them, and they are happy campers. Our frozen winters are also excellent for controlling many diseases. We don't have poisonous snakes, don't have $350-400/ acre cash rents, don't have illegal Mexicans( just kidding of course!!). This might be considered to be tough country, but compared to many other places I have visited, it is pretty dang good country!A bonus we have is that the occasional -40 degree day helps keep the riff raff out!

 

[frostback]

Ya know JIT some people just have a horseshoe you know where. Glad things were OK. I did the same thing the other day bringing home some heifers but I only traveled up the drive way when I saw the open slider.

 

[ROMAX]

I can't wait until you write a book JIT

 

[forbes family farms]

you should write a book about this. Knowing my luck the heifer would of jumped out of the trailer and would of ended up as a total disaster. You were very lucky that day.

 

[JoeBnTN]

These trailer stories are enough to make you wonder why we do this.  Several years ago, when I was still fitting a few cattle on the side, I was asked to take a Simmy bull and heifer around the southeast for a good friend.  After one show we were getting ready to head home when my clients son-in-law (I'm sure trying to impress his new father-in-law) offerred to hook-up the trailer while I finshed getting the cattle ready to load.  We loaded and headed out, but I didn't check the hitch on the trailer.  About 20 miles down the road as I was headed down a 3 mile mountain stretch I heard a pop then felt the trailer come loose.  I looked back in the bed just as the trailer came free.  Fortunately I was able to slow down quickly and the hitch hit the ball and I locked it down in the middle of the interstate.  My clients were right behind me and came running to see what had happened.  Needless to say the young son-in-law had a very uncomfortable ride home with his "dad" and I learned  a valuable lesson - NEVER assume that the trailer is hooked until you check it yourself.

 

[Shady Lane]

A few years ago when I still worked on a ranch to the north west of here, I was hauling pairs to a winter pasture where some grass had been stockpiled from the year before, it was this time of year or so and we were running out of space to keep pairs on the home farm since we were calving around 800 cows. The pasture we were hauling to was about a 10 mile drive mostly on windy gravel roads through bush areas which would provide shelter for the young calves through the spring weather.
  I worked away at sorting some purebred Charolais pairs off and penning them in trailer loads, and then started loading cows to go to this pasture, I put baby calves in the front compartment of a 24' Keifer trailer and then ran their mothers on behind them, made sure all the doors were latched and we were good to go.
  About 3 miles from our destination there was a terrible BANG as we were driving along a gravel road at about 35 or 40 MPH, I looked in the mirror and saw something white doing Cartwheels down the gravel road, realising it was a 1700# PB Charolais cow I hit the brake HARD for a brief second (panic reaction I guess) this caused the trailer door to swing back closed and latch keeping the rest of the cows on the trailer. I got stopped and started backing up since I had now gone another 1/4 to 1/2 a mile from where the cow fell out.

When I arrived at the spot where the cow fell out it looked like a chicken had cone through or a snowblower or somebody had lost a really bad pillow fight, there was white hair EVERYWHERE it seemed. I was completely expecting to find a dead or severely injured cow but instead found a cow that was just getting to her feet. Noticing her tag# I had a sick feeling since she was known to be a tempermental problem at the best of times, I wondered how I would ever get this cow to the pasture which was still a good 3 miles or more and there was bush on one side of the road and open country with no fences on the other, I had a cell phone but there was no service, right about then that cow's calf bawled and the cow ran up to the side of the trailer to check on it, I took a quick look at the cow and she seemed to be ok besides a little "road rash" here and there, I jumped into the truck and stuck it in low gear, that darned old cow trotted along beside that trailer the whole way to the pasture, bawling to her calf the whole time! I dropped the wire gate and pulled right in on the frozen ground with the cow following me, the cow never seemed to be any worse for the wear and her superficial wounds healed up on their own without any problem.

As it would seem, a cow must have pushed on the slam latch mechanism that a Keifer trailer has on the rear door in just such a way that would cause the door to spring open, the door was also secured with a short "safety chain" that came from the factory and was attached from the trailer to the door, the snap that secured this to the door must have broken instantly with the weight of that big cow pushing on it and out she went.

After this ordeal I will never own a Keifer trailer, it was a bad day that could have ended up a lot worse! I shudder when I think about going down the freeway only the very day before and what could have happened if something on one of those loads had of broken out at highway speed and fallen into traffic!

Praise god for small miracles.

 

[Hilltop]

Last fall after leaving the Fever Sale in Olds, Alberta, I had to make a stop along the way and pick up a couple of black cows........preceeded south to Cochrane,AB,  stopped at set of lights and people in truck beside us are waving like crazy for us to turn down the window, "Did you know that you have a black cow standing there ready to jump out of the back???????"    OMG    I jumped out and sneeked aound with my arm out and put it across the back door, well the opening!!!!sure's hell there was a black head right there.... she got scared and went backwards instead of forwards, thank god because it was almost midnight and these black cows were black!!! we would never have found them in the hills around that country and if we did we would never have gotten them rounded up any time soon!!!!!! I know we had put the pin in the back door after we had loaded them......it must have broke and fell out somewhere going down the highway.... I did have another one and I had some heavy duty tie wrap thingies!! I put them on too!! No way they were gonna get out on me ...............I had anothe 8hrs.+ drive to get home!!!! After my daughter and I did arrive home safely, my husband had to use the trailer to haul something, not cows, and he too had the pin break and the door shimmied open too!!! So  he remanufactured everything at the back  and it's all good now!!! it wasn't faulty pins it was the door .........Don't want that to happen again!!!!!!!!!