When I was in high school, I started a custom cattle hauling business with a 1-ton and a 6×24 stock trailer. People would call and ask, “Rob, how many head can you haul?” I would always hesitate to answer, thinking they would realize how silly their question was.
The number of animals I could haul was dependent on the size of the animals. My trailer was good for about 12,000 pounds. While I could haul 24 calves that weighed 500 pounds, I could only haul eight cows that weighed 1400 pounds.
I also noticed a load of smaller cattle was always worth more than a load of bigger cattle when sent to market. Sometimes a lot more!
Fast forward… When I began leasing pastures, I would ask, “How many cows will it run?” More times than not, the landowner would not hesitate one bit before telling me how many cows it would run. I soon realized pastures are like stock trailers; they can only handle so many pounds!
Most of my neighbors like to question my smaller, more moderate-sized PCC® cows. When they ask my buddy, G.W., about my smaller cows, G.W. will say, “All I know is you can put a lot more in the trailer!” I will always finish by saying, “…and a lot more in the pasture!”
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