Its funny how a guy can ask a simple question about hauling cattle and its gone to 2 pages, with half of the "answers" being worthless.

Load the darn things, haul'em, unloadem, and get your money. Did it for a whole winter a few years back. Made some good money and the cows never told a soul.

Dont forget to hit the speacial sales and dispersments.

we charged $2.0/mile, but that was several years back.

 

Unless they have changed the rules since I got my authority, it is not required for livestock and unfinished goods such as lumber. You are still required to have the insurance, DOT numbers, log book, and all the safety stuff required. Have some friends that haul livestock and none of them have authority and don't haul anything else. One of them was fined for not being registered to haul in a certain state. DOT told him that he had to register with them even if he was hauling cattle. Costs him a few hundred bucks for that one. You would also probably be required to carry the commercial liability insurance. Cargo insurance would probably be smart to have unless you could get your customers to let you haul their cattle without it. Some of my customers require all insurance to be in the files and some never mention it. I am paying about $4,000 a year for $1,000,000 liability and $200,000 cargo. Shop around, the price can vary a lot from company to company. Sagamore tried to charge me $5300 for the liability and Progressive did it for about $2600.

 

Whats even funnier is how some people try to persuade another person into breaking the law, then disappear when that person gets caught and has to pay huge fines or loses everything because they got in an accident without insurance.

 

If you got farm tags on your trailer gitter done. I hauled cows all the way from West Tesas to Mississippi.

"IF" you get pulled over - them cows is yours. End of story.

Thats the trouble woth people today. They make a simple situation so complex it scares the bejesus out of people.

If its serves me right - I have never seen a DOT behind a cattle trailer.

 

oilfield you got it right,wonder how some people even leave the yard they worrie too much

 

[QUOTE=oilfield-trash;2375387]

If its serves me right - I have never seen a DOT behind a cattle trailer.

they only like the big bullhaulers never seem to mess with the little guys

 

Make sure they pay you with cash. If someone rats you out, your insurance company and your local government officials will be calling. I've hauled a lot of tractors with my truck, across all kinds of state lines, but they were my tractors, I bought them, and they were being sold by me. I wasn't hauling them for someone else.

Having said that, if it's a family deal, you'll probably be fine. The question is, is it worth it for the amount of money you're going to make if you get nailed. If it was so profitable hauling this livestock around for hire, I guarantee you that these ranchers would be doing it themselves.

I understand your predicament. It's a shame that we're so regulated these days that you can't hardly enter a restroom without a license to manufacture methane gas.

 

That'll happen so enough.

I went to ship my son's Christmas presents to him a while back (okay it was today and that's another story) only to be told that part of the package couldn't be shipped. We bought a bunch of stuff at Epcot and one of the gifts was a bottle of sake. UPS couldn't ship it from Colorado to Washington because they didn't have the proper license. I bought if for my 23 year old son who's a Sergeant in the Army.

I'll have to drink it and tell him how good it was.