Trailer safety

[Rod]

Today I was hauling 6 Jersey heifers back to the owners farm after using my Lowline bull to service them. Ours is a gravel (read bumpy) road and after locking them in my stock trailer I proceeded down it to Rt 5 and to a gas station a couple of miles away. To my surprise and horror when I looked into the trailer while filling up I found it empty and the sliding half door wide open. The heifers were gone!!
Apparently the slider was not locked shut when I left or the lock bolt bounced out and allowed the door to open on the way down my road. I found the animals about a mile back on RT 5 and semi organized by some town highway crew men and a police office who happened to be passing by just after it happened. They were split into two groups of three heifers each and located a half mile apart. The helpers accumulated quickly and after some trapping, pulling and pushing we were able to get all six back in the trailer. Cars lined up the road and plenty of willing and capable helpers made it work.
This could have been my worst nightmare and certainly was a wake up call to put backup chains on my trailer doors. How many times I have worried when delivering animals and stopping for lunch thinking about the animals and how vulnerable they are to being released by a prankster or curious child that lifts the door latch. Lucky for me I was on a well traveled road and the highway trucks with radios were in the area.
The heifers seem ok if you discount the bruises and nicks and cuts.
A lesson in every mishap, keep those trailer doors doubly secured with a redundant and backup fastening system, in my case I added chains for the next load of 6 which I took later in the day and can attest to feeling very secure knowing they were there.
Was someone watching over me or did I see a miracle? Perhaps. Consider the following circumstances:
1. I didn’t need the gas as I still had over a quarter tank and had not planned to stop but did it on a whim when I was passing the station. If I had not stopped I would have been a half hour away when I discovered them gone.
2. The places where the cows were found had natural barriers which prevented them escaping off the road sides. On one side of the road was a nearly vertical slope which a couple heifers tried to climb but it was too steep. On the other side was a guard rail and a steep drop off both of which functioned as a deterrent and guide for the animals on the other side of the road. The heavy traffic which was stopped and backed up served as barriers in both up and down the road.
3.The two Town highway trucks and police car were in the immediate vicinity when it happened and initially organized the animals before they could spread out and get too far away. And they had radios to summon help from Town not very far away. The remaining route to the owners farm was not so, being lightly traveled and with escape fields and wood all along it. Had they gotten out in that area we would be still looking for them.
4.The heifers did not cause any accidents or receive and serious physical harm themselves even though that is a heavily traveled speeding road. I was going at least 50MPH when I passed the spot where the were found.
Marilyn says my guardian Angel must be about worn out he has gotten me out of so many scrapes and close calls over the years. Some day maybe I will meet him and we can reminisce.

[mother katherine]

I’d give an “educated”(read my moniker) reply: Yes, you were/are being looked after
hmmm Rockingham,Vt. Anywhere near Bellows Falls? I spent a school year in Bellows Falls a lifetime ago.
oxnun

[Rod]

Same place.

[OldKat]

Rod,

I have gooseneck cattle trailer, but when I am only going to haul one or two head I use someone else’s bumper hitch trailer. Currently I use the local high school FFA chapter’s 16′ stock trailer for these smaller hauls. Formerly I would borrow a bumper hitch trailer from an old man down the road.

His trailer had a nice latch on it to secure the main gate, but just a pin on a chain to secure the slider. On Good Friday of 2002 I was hauling a few pairs to a different pasture and had the pairs in the front part of the trailer and a steer that was going elsewhere in the back section. I was in a hurry to get home, because we were going to church that night. When I checked the latch on the main gate, I probably never looked at the pin on the slider.

I had hauled these animals about 25 miles when I passed through our town. I decided to stop and drop my daughter off at our house, and when I was just about to start stopping for the stop sign about 150′ from our house I felt the truck & trailer lurch. When I looked in the mirror to see if I had run over something I saw the steer rolling down the street! That was a sight I won’t forget any time soon.

Fortunately we live right on the very edge of town and he headed out of town. We were able to hem him up in someone’s yard and get the trailer in close enough to use the space between their garage and their fence as an alley way to get him back on board. He wasn’t too scuffed up, but had the bark knocked off him in a place or two. He wasn’t too keen to get back in trailer after that, though. Ironically I still have him. He is my baby sitter any time I have new animals, or when I want to keep a single animal in a specific pasture. Throw old Stormy in there with them and they will be fine.

I think maybe you and I have the same guardian angel, because it could have turned out worse. Much worse. Glad your ordeal wasn’t any worse than it was though.

Bottom line time … you are correct, check those latches and use those safety chains as a backup.

[TBigLug]

Wow, scary experience. We have two brand new nylon hame straps that secure each door on our stock anytime we move anything. Just in case…

[Vicki]

Similar story: Borrowed a rusty old horse bumper pull trailer to take a steer to the abbatoir. It had a “people” door on the side that we never used. Went about 20 miles at 60 mph, then stopped at a red light in a small town. I in the passenger seat just happened to look in the side mirror and saw the steer’s head looking out toward the Dairy Queen we were stopped in front of! I jumped out of the truck, nonchalantly said hello to the steer that thank goodness was tame and calm, calmly closed the side people door, and tied a rope around it this time. That steer was just getting ready to step down out of there and take a little ramble around Orwell, Ohio! The door closure was old and rusty, we never checked it, and it must have knocked loose in transport.

[TBigLug]

@Vicki 11243 wrote:

Similar story: Borrowed a rusty old horse bumper pull trailer to take a steer to the abbatoir. It had a “people” door on the side that we never used.

Reminded me of something else. When we haul cattle we tie a small gate (4×4) up to the inside of the trailer in front of that door. We’ve always worried about them pushing the door out given it’s just thin sheet metal.

[Author]

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