I realise this is sort of a silly question, but I have a load of cows to pick up and haul friday. I have a brand new 7' x 24' Sooner Ranch stock trailer and I'm wondering if 8 cows will fit.

How many do others haul in their 24' trailers?

Yeah they are Big cows, they are donor cows coming back from an Embryo transplant facillity so none of them are small.

And I'm going a little over 500 miles, so I don't want them to be tight. They will be on the trailer for about 8 hours.

I'll see how they look once I get them loaded. Should work I think.

 If they are grown, you'll have a load, size as well as weight....

gate em 4 on front 4 on the back  and if you can drive 500 miles in a little truck and  gooseneck with 12500 lbs on it you should consider bullhauling

I can't put 4 in front and 4 in the rear with 2 centre gates, there is 3 compartments. So I'll eithe load them 3, 3 and 2 or 5 and three and leave one gate open.

I don't want them to be too tight, these are valuable donor cows.

I won't hul all 8 if they look too tight.

  I have hauled hundred of cattle thousands of miles in Stock trailers and Liners so it's not new to me. I'm just unsure how many of these big girls will fit in my new trailer since this will be it's first load and I previously had a 6X 20' gooseneck.

Leave the middle compartment empty or do it 3, 2, 3, but I personally wouldn't haul 5 head in a compartment that is 8 X 16. How I haul my valuable donor cows is 5 per compartment that is 7 x 10.

So you are saying you haul 10 mature cows on a 20'?

Wow, that sounds tight to me but mabe they aen't as big.

Some of these cows are VERY big!

Depends a lot on how wide your trailer is.

A 600# steer in a 16 x 7 I would guess, 10 or so.

Correct myself here. 7 x 11. 10 loaded. Unloaded 12,860 pounds ten days ago. St

Don't get me wrong...they are loaded in, but they don't have to wander all over to maintain balance. I still stand by 4 front, empty, 4 rear. If you aren't comfortable with that do 3, 2, 3. Load heavy in the front and heavy in that back to offset the weight added to the hitch.

AQHA - 14 probably. maybe 15 or 16. Be tight though.

Ok, I can understnad if they are only 1280# cows on average, and on a 22' trailer. Tha sounds like it would work.

These girls are big though!

I dn't think their is anyway I'd get 4 cows to fit in each compartment to comfortably ride 500+ miles.

I'll load em friday and if they look tight I'll leave one or two behind.

I'll post back what I find!

Found some other info in a book I have. This was from a study for handling beef cattle. The numbers below are the recommended amount of space for the least bruising and falls.

Polled Cattle (non horned) recommended loading space

600 lbs = 8.5 sq ft, 800 lbs = 10.5 sq ft, 1000 lbs = 12 sq ft, 1200 = 14.5 sq ft, 1400 = 18 sq ft.

Using this method, I am overloaded by 1/2 cow in each compartment. A 16 x 7 with one cut gate should haul 7 600 pound cattle per compartment. An 8 x 24 should haul 3.5 to 4.5 1200 to 1400 pound cows per compartment.

These are Shorthorn cows.

Yes some of them are quite valuable.

One girl in particular has produced around $200,000 in progeny and embryos.

So I made it out there and back just fine.

  However, those cows were a little heavyier than anybody guessed!

  Loaded them friday morning and noticed my truck was squatting a little bit extra but they had enough room or whatever so away we went.

Also noticed I was burning more fuel than normal.

So I rolled accross a DOT scale and was SHOCKED when I grossed 30,118#

Meaning those girls AVERAGED, well over a ton!

And one of them was a crossbred recipient!

(much smaller than a big stout, well fed former show cow and now donor)

Anyway, got out there, no problems, had a good trip. Just hauled 3 bulls back so that was easy.

Rolled in last night at about 10 pm.

1498 miles round trip.

  Good times.