Livestock, Pickups, and Stock Racks

Remember when most livestock was transported using pickups and stock racks? This was the usual method of getting horses to pasture for moving cattle, and it was likely you would see many pickups with stock racks at rodeos. If you had a couple of cows, bulls, or pigs to move to market this was the transportation mode. Trucks (the western terminology of truck) with stock racks were also quite commonly seen at the local sales yard. Then it became quite common to see a single or double horse trailer used for this means of moving a few head of livestock. If you followed a rodeo circuit it was quite common to see a pickup with an inbox camper pulling a single or double horse trailer. If you were to tour around farmsteads it is likely you would see old wooden stock racks sitting in the corner or maybe even a newer metal version. If you want to entertain yourself sometime just count the number of these transportation vehicles you meet on the road, or see at a rodeo or stock show. I would be surprised if you even see one, but pretty sure you would not use more fingers than on the one hand. I might even be enticed to follow rodeo again if I had access to the really nice looking stock trailers/campers that are now on the road. Oh, back to the pickup/stock rack livestock transportation, you needed to know where to find a good dirt “ramp” for loading and unloading, or have very athletic livestock.