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s.c. north dakota | This afternoon I get a call from a local trucker "Hey, wanna help reload some cattle?" Reload? Whats that all about? Well, a pot load of Canadien fat cattle hit the ditch and laid on its side. N.D. State Hiway 3 is kind of a narrow winding bitch anyway and it had been snowing most of the day so it was hard to tell where the edge of the road was. The driver was okay, but our fire dept. /local cowboys had to push 3-4 feet of snow away from the roof and set up enough portable panels to get the cattle up to the edge of the road. When we started setting up, the brand inspector shows up and informs us we are not to unload the cattle until the state vet gave the all clear. Well, I says, " Even though these aren't local cattle we won't sit here and watch them die and besides it will be dark soon. So sue us." He was kinda outnumbered, Musta had 20 hands helping out. We had to cut 2 holes in the roof and cut part of the endgate away to get them out. There were 7 head down in the belly that we thought were all dead until we got all the walking critters out of the way. Then we see 2 of them have some life in them so we hooked a chain to them and pulled them out of the pile and damned if they didn't get up and walk out without even limping! We got them loaded onto stock trailers and hauled to the stockyards. It sure could have been worse, we saved 42 out 49. The trucker asked what we charge for something like this and I just said "I guess we are in uncharted waters here, we have 20 guys, 3 stock trailers, a mfwd loader tractor, and a trailer full of panels. I have no idea what we should charge for all that." With all the trucks hauling cattle in all kinds of weather this or something close to this is bound to happen again. I guess we need to update a fee chart. Rob D | |
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I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often
