Livestock Trailer Alternative?

I'm going to start accumulating four legged property-mates (several goats, a couple of sheep, and a donkey or 2). I don't have a livestock trailer, or a good enough friend to borrow from. I've heard of people transporting goats in cars, but what about donkeys? Any ideas for making the back of a pick-up safe enough (we have a full size p/u), or other safe alternative?

OTOH, I'm new to animal husbandry. Is owning a livestock trailer kind of a prerequisite? Should I understand that owning transportation is just part of the program?

When I got my first 6 sheep, I cut up 2 cattle panels to build a sturdy cage that mounted in the bed of my full sized pickup and transported them several hundred miles on the interstate with no problems.  Its amazing what you can come up with when you combine a little imagination, some cattle panels, and recip saw, some wire, and some metal clips.  For a solid wall, trap a tarp between two layers of cattle panel.  The pickup pen I built was "u" shaped with the curve of the "u" towards the cab, a flat top holding the "u" together and a hinged door on the back end just inside the tailgate.  The whole pen was tied down using the tie downs inside the bed.  It used 1 whole cattle panel for the "u" shaped wall, a cut piece for the roof and the 2nd cut piece for the door.

I own 3 horses, 3 sheep and a St. Bernard.  I have not had a stock trailer in over 10 years.  (I don't even have a truck, just a smallish suv.)  I would love to have a truck and trailer, but it doesn't make sense here at my farm, I find ways around it.

Most small town-ish local feed stores rent trailers.  You already have the truck, so you are way ahead of me. 

If you put rails up on your truck you should be able to haul almost any calm-ish large animal.  My pony was delivered on the back of a truck (no rails) and I have a friend that hauled a Jersey cow in the back of her truck (with rails).  I think a donkey would be fine.  (Sheep and goats will do fine in the back of a truck (without rails) if they are in a large dog carrier.)

Good luck!

And I agree with basjoos. 

Certainly for goats, if you're only hauling one or two at a time, a car would be adequate.  I have a station wagon and I just fold down the back seat and lay a tarp down when I need to haul a goat (such as a doe to a buck).

Even a tarp spread over the back seat of a sedan would be fine for one or two.  I would not haul a smelly buck that way, though.  Ugh.  You'd probably never get that smell out of the car.

And, of course, if you're hauling a herd, a car wouldn't do.

If you have access to someone with a truck with a canopy that encloses completely, that would work well, too.  That's how I hauled 21 goats (in two loads) when I moved five years ago.

I would never haul a goat (even tied) in the open bed of a truck, but that's just me.

I don't know about sheep.  It would probably depend a lot on how tame it/they is/are.

As for the donkeys, I would check Craigslist.  I often see people offering to haul livestock.  Unless you're planning on doing a lot of transporting of your donkeys (showing or whatever people with donkeys do with them), I wouldn't think investing in a stock trailer would make much sense.  Hiring someone with the proper equipment (or renting it yourself, which was already mentioned) makes more sense to me.

Edited to add: You could also check with your local 4-H, FFA, pony clubs.  Sometimes older 4-H/FFA, etc. members are looking for ways to earn money and may be available to haul animals.  Insurance may be an issue, though.  To get names of 4-H leaders, contact your local county extension office.

I met a guy on the interstate who was hauling sheep from LA to southern Oregon.

He had a flatbed trailer, the kind often used for hauling motorcycles, and had built a pen on it with stock panels.

Sheep did fine, we played tag with him all through California almost all the way to Oregon.

We don't like trailers because our mountain roads are so treacherous. Instead we have an extended body cargo van. The pack half or so is our livestock space. In front of that is a chest freezer. In front of that is the passenger bench seat and then the driver & navigator up front.

Six live pigs, six pigs of pork, six people and a dog riding shotgun.

See: http://flashweb.com/?s=e-250

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions! I like basjoos' idea for transporting goats with the cattle panel "pen" in the back of the pick up. And I'll look into rentals for the donkeys. I don't know equines yet, but I gather they'd be more sensitive about their ride. 

I've hauled sheep  in a minivan and even one pony..That got a lot of looks when cars passed us and saw a horse looking morosely out at them   I had a horse delivered once in the back of a pickup with no rails but I personally wouldn't ever do it that way. It's possibly  also against the law as in many places it's even against the law to have dogs untied in the back of trucks so they can't jump out.

Easy to get some pallets and bang them together to make stock racks that  slide into the bed and latch together at the corners..you might want to make the inside solid faced at least at the bottom so nobody gets a foot caught in the spaces or tries to climb out. The back can be made up of a pallet or two with a solid top -3/4 in plywood is good with slats mounted on the face so they don't slip will carry a full size horse with no problem. I glued and nailed bits of old carpet under the slats..it gets messy sometimes but better that than an accident. This will act as a  ramp that lifts up and becomes the back gate.  Or, if you need something that will hold them in right away, make a sliding door that comes down as the last one goes in and use bolts that slide through to hold the ramp so it can be simply taken off and either left  for another time or loaded on the side to unload at your destination. 

Years ago nobody had trailers, they all used versions of stock racks if they had trucks. I have seen trailers made out of old truck boxes used to haul creatures  as well..the sort of thing people make into  utility trailers but with higher sides. It's now a sort of status thing to have trailers instead of stock racks I think.

I also moved an adult Arabian stallion 1500 or so miles in the back of a UHaul truck..I lined the sides and bottom with particle board, had LOTS of  sawdust bedding and gated in the back with 2x6s then left the back door of the UHaul up. (Nothing was attached to the truck itself, it was a self contained thing, the back was kept from falling out by the way the truck box was built, I just had to make sure it wouldn't fall IN).   People kept passing me and signalling that the back door was up    The first couple of times that happened I figured something was wrong but he travelled quite serenely. I was a bit concerned that the exhaust might curl up and into the truck box but it didn't seem to and it was a matter of no other options anyway. Even when we stopped overnight he was a happy camper. I didnt take him out but he had the equivilent of an 8x16 foot stall in there so figured he was ok for a day as long as he had water and hay. After  taking out the panelling, all of which was resusable, and taking the truck through the carwash, the UHaul people never even knew what I had hauled in it.

This is the situation I'm finding myself in, now. We are leaving for a trip, and when we return, we will be heading out on another trip, 6hrs drive from home, to pick up my 3 mini-esque goats,  and a 100 yard roll of 4ft goat fence(new, still wrapped, tight). I've no vehicle to use. I drive a 2 door, sebring convertible - and hubs drives a 2017 Impala. There is no way he's going to be good with using his car, and mine is too small. I've been looking into renting a truck, suv, or van, and the cost is prohibitive, to say the least. The friends we have made here, have been great - but, this seems like simply too much to ask. Does anyone have any ideas, beyond what's here, in this thread, so far?

I've transported goats in a house removal truck before. The cost wasn't an issue because we had to hire it out to move all our stuff, and we just did a second trip with the goats and their stuff in it.

I've used a 4wd to transport one or two goats at a time - I tethered them to different spots in the car so that they couldn't fight, and they had enough space to stand up and sit down but not to get tangled.

Most larger cars would be able to fit 3 goats in it tethered in different spots. For a 6 hour drive, it would get messy though, so it's probably better to have something that's easier to clean out.

I wonder if you could put an ad up in the local feed shop or online saying you wanted to hire someone's stock trailer for the day?

My livestock dealer will transport animals anywhere in the country, and most weeks when I call him, he might be down south, in Montana, or out to New Mexico...and I live in Maine. So that works well because he is always just a call away.

But I have also moved animals in a You-Haul Trailer. I read the contract and it does not say anywhere in there that you cannot move livestock with what they rent. I only had a few sheep so I just used a trailer, but you could use a truck too if you can get them up the ramp. I am just not sure if it was You-Haul or Ewe-Haul! :-)

I have also wired pallets together to haul sheep to the slaughterhouse before.

(Note: Permies would not allow me to use the abbreviation for You (U) Haul which is why I spelled it You-Haul instead.)

I'm purchasing my goats from a woman who is being forced to downsize her personal ranch, due to the failing health of both her parents, and her husband's, and the time demands of taking care of them. She can't bring them, and they're as much pets as livestock, plus the weather is turning, and this breed, if they get wet and cold, can be very susceptible to pneumonia - and one is a baby.

So, hubs has decided for me, lol. I was trying to do this as inexpensively as possible, but he just said, "NO.  I'm am going to take you there, we will rent a truck from there, home - which you will drive." I'm very good with that! Problem solved. Thanks for your assistance, folks!

Something I can offer in this thread is that this is not a livestock trailer or a good alternative.

I have literally seen five kids and a miniature pony in a Chevy suburban.

Huxley Harter wrote:I have literally seen five kids and a miniature pony in a Chevy suburban.

When I was a kid, a millennia ago, we had one particular instance of 8 kids, 2 goats and 3 adults, in a station wagon, for about 45 minutes, lol. Being uncomfortable was a way of life, and 'unsafe' was typically not even a thought in our minds, in those days! It was more a matter of, 'If there's a will, there's a way!'