New electronic devices that will be required in all livestock hauling might have reaching effects for those in the industry. One of these ways will be the layover times required if a driver reaches the maximum number of hours traveled in a day.
Nathan Jones is the former herd manager for Hoosier Longhorns and he still assists with the operation. He does not believe the new law will be a positive change for the cattle industry.
“Some of the events that are in Oklahoma are over the required driving hours and you have a load of cattle. Then it comes to the time where you have to stop for 10 hours, what do you do with your cattle?” Jones said. “They can’t stay on a trailer for 10 hours. You have got to get them off the trailer and I can see where it is going to be tough. There may be events you can’t go to now.”
Those stops will be something drivers will need to work out before they plan any big trips.
“If there is not a place where you can unload a longhorn and then reload them back safely, then it would be out of the question to go to some of these places,” Jones said. “I can see where this will hurt several of the livestock haulers.”
Jones understands there might have been good intentions behind the rules but he believes it will do harm as it is.
“They are coming at it from a safety angle but then I don’t think they have thought through the repercussions,” Jones said. “And when you are hauling livestock, you want to get them where they are going and get them off the trailer. If you have to layover for 10 hours, where do you layover with a load of cattle?”
Jones said for some cattle, it might be somewhat easier but finding a layover for longhorns will be a challenge.
“Commercial cattle, maybe you could find a rancher or feedlot or something like that that you could offload your cattle but not every place is going to have facilities you can get longhorns through shoots and stuff,” Jones said. “Some of these cows now are 90 inches tip-to-tip. Where do you find facilities that can safely handle this? Some of these cows are worth over $200,000. You are not just going to kick them off the trailer at some place that is not safe for the animal.”
But the animals can’t safely stay on a trailer for 10 hours either.
“They have to be watered. They’ve got to be able to lay down and rest,” Jones said. “It’s is going to make it tough on a lot of ranchers and a lot of people in our industry.”
Equine industry
“It will be the same problem,” Jones said, who is also an equine farrier. “Some of these horses have incredible values and they can’t stay on a trailer. You have got to get them off the trailer.”
Jones thinks it will hurt all livestock industries.
“It’s just going to be tough on all livestock haulers,” Jones said. “Just period. I don’t know if this was very well thought out. It’s implemented though so I guess we will see if it hurts the industry and people stop hauling.”
It will also hurt people involved with lives outside of the industry.
“You will now have to have a layover place and then it takes longer,” Jones said.
Changes in the locations of the events is not an option and even if they did, some participants would still be over hours.
For instance, Jones said, consider the National Reining Horse Association Reining Futurity held last weekend in Oklahoma City.
“You’ve got the best of the best reining horses that are there,” Jones said. “You have people coming from coast-to-coast coming to Oklahoma City for that. And you’ve got the Cutting Futurity in Fort Worth and again, that is people coming from coast-to-coast. You’ve got all different disciplines of horses and hauling distances to compete at these things. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people come to these single events and bring in sometimes over a thousand horses.”
To hosting communities, this can be quite a bit of revenue.
“So it’s more than just hurting one little breeder that has maybe a horse they are going to haul for the reining or cutting horse or western pleasure horse or something like that,” Jones said. “You have fewer people selling fuel at these places and fewer people that are coming into restaurants and hotel chains and on and on. If this law then causes the number of horses there to diminish at the bigger events, then that has a direct impact on the economy of each of these places. You have got big venues everywhere all over the country and I think it will definitely make some of these destinations out of reach for some people.
“I’m not going to say it will be devastating to the cattle and equine industry but it is going to make it tough. That’s for sure.”