Barn Talk - American Trucking: The Key To Feeding The World w/Austin Knupp

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

Welcome To Barn Talk! In today’s episode, we have Austin Knupp on the show to discuss the logistics of the trucking business, what it takes to haul livestock, biggest struggles of being a trucker, & much, much more. SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq ADD US ON: INSTAGRAM ➱ https://bit.ly/3gaobdN TIKTOK ➱ https://bit.ly/3eJfftr #trucker #trucking #barntalk ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So when we load pigs, today we're loading roughly 160, 162 pigs to a trailer is where we're at. And it takes us, you know, just if we pre-sort everything, so it's going to take us a half an hour to load them if everything goes good. And, you know, you're going to load four or five pigs. You're going to, the way we do it is we have the pigs pre-sorted, and I have somebody that is running the pigs up the alley. Sawyer's getting pigs out of the pen Somebody's running up the alley Bringing them to me And I'm loading him

And dad yells out the numbers Yeah and as we go You know most of these guys Back to the guy running up the alley And he relays it back to me They want to know how many pigs I need to get out To fill the hole

Right and I like loading them Because I want every pig to know As it goes on the trailer that I won Because it is a battle of wits Sometimes you do lose though Don't get it wrong Yeah I'll tell you what I'm starting to show my age

because I've been knocked down twice in the last year, and I loaded last winter, and I actually had my legs, my short little legs. I'm pretty sure if you would have seen it in slow motion, my little legs were above my head, and it was one of those deals that when I hit the ground, I sat there and I thought to myself, I wonder if you're going to be able to get up or not.

I wonder if you broke anything. All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear, comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays in the barn. Until now, we're going to let it all out for you guys. Today, we're joined with a special guest.

We'll introduce them a little later, but today we're going to get into the logistics of ag, how we get the pork to you, the consumer, from the little pigs to fat hogs, to get them on the truck, to get him to the Packers. All that's going to get broken down for you guys. And he knows his stuff.

He knows everything that goes into this business, trucking and everything. So you'll get a lot of value out of this. A lot of people have questions. We get asked a lot of questions about that side of it. And we figured it'd be good to just have somebody on there. It's an expert. So without further ado, you want to give a market update, Pops?

I guess I can. Markets are all headed in the shitter because harvest is on. I'd say we're, I don't know, I asked the feed truck driver yesterday whether, whether there was any new crop corn rolling into Wayland, and he said he didn't think there was, but I'm sure the first truck that goes, the basis falls out. So there's a few guys starting around here, and I've heard pretty good numbers. I talked to a guy the other day, or two days ago that was combining his corn was between 21 and 23. I went out and hand-shelled some, and it was 25. and so add a few points of that. I don't think mine's quite ready yet. But we'll probably go next week because why not?

It's hot, so we'll just blow air on it and see if we can get it dry. You're getting Nancy. Well, you know, when you got as many acres of rolls, we got, you got to get after it. We'll be picking corn in the snow. Well, not real. Well, actually, we could with as much shit as we break. So anyway, local corn, 560, and that's at one of the feeders, 583 and Muscat, soybeans 1254 on this side of the river and 1290 if you want to go across the river.

I forgot to take cattle out of the thing. I was going to quit even talking about cattle because cattle's 124 every week. I mean, they're just high. Wish I had some. Oh. Whoa. That's a day. No, I'm kidding.

I don't think I ever hear those work. I don't want any cattle. I don't. Yeah. If there's something that could bring the cattle market down, it would be us getting into cattle. Probably. Probably. That would do it.

That would do it. Hogs, the closest month's 82, just shy 82 when I looked. Bitcoin, $48,000. It's on its way back. It's kind of been, it hit the skids right there the day that El Salvador started up. But it's coming back to the moon. Ethereum 3,500. Tesla is having an update, 752 the last time I checked.

So we're all headed in the right direction. I want to say one quick thing. If you guys get any value from the show today, all we ask for you to do is just share it out share the show with your friends family co-workers whoever uh that's just the ticket admission to watch or listen to the show we don't run ads on the show we don't promote the show with ads so it's all just organic growth and that's all we asked from you guys if you enjoyed or anything yeah and and comment and tell us what you really think i had a great we had a great comment off the one last week so last week's podcast was an hour

and 50 minutes long and somebody somebody said well you want to be to be honest uh you really liked it and i did listen to it all the way of the end i'm surprised i did but uh an hour and 50 minutes that's pretty long you guys need to keep it down an hour you don't have to listen to it all in one day you know you can break it up but that's kind of the that's the point of a podcast we get real deep in the conversation so sometimes when it's just flowing we're gonna let it flow something like that we get we get going sometimes we can't leave us a review too leave us a review yeah that helps that helps us out so yeah all right go ahead okay well today we've got a local legend.

So Austin Nup is the transportation director of Eichelberger Farms, which full disclosure, that's who we feed pigs for. And he is a southeast Iowa guy grew up here in southeast Iowa. He is involved in his family farm and trucking business, which he still finds time to drive for. I don't know. I think he just sleeps at this desk down there at the truck shop, but I won't tell anybody. Oh, shit.

I just did. He is a graduate of Iowa State University and a degree. What is your degree? Ag Slack. Ag studies. Ag studies. And I was going for two and a half years, so I wanted to elongate my stay. So I had three minors and Syaggbizaggbogomy.

Look at you. Yeah. Half my resume is that, yeah. You go get her. did i i thoroughly enjoyed my four years and nup knows how to work a room and let's face it he's a borderline genius because at the end of the day he's a truck driver and we all know those guys they know it all they know all the answers so welcome austin nup okay so today you're the transportation director but you're still farming you're still farming you're still

still trucking on your own. So tell us a little bit about how you got to this mess. Growing up in southeast Iowa, growing up a farm kid. So yeah, I am in the heart of Washington County, which Washington County is very known for its success and economy in the ag world, especially hogs, corn, soybeans, a little bit of cattle, not so much anymore cattle. But I'm right in the heart of Washington County. Grew up on Highway 1, State Highway, a little small, small row crop operation. My uncle Mark kind of runs that side of the thing or the business. My father, you know, when he was that age back in the, you know, 70s, we weren't the size

that he could come home, so he needed to have supplemental income. So he started trucking to branch style out. The trucking was 100% his and kind of Mark took over the farm inside of things. So kind of fell in love with that, just as any other farm kid, just like Sawyer did when he was young, really took an interest in the... the farming thing and later ended the trucking. More so the trucking later because of income. You know, when I kind of got old enough,

the markets weren't where they needed to be to come home, right? LDP and corn. Yep, exactly. So, you know, even growing up, you know, my first memory of actually having a good responsibility on the farm would have been we used to do our own pigs. So dad and Mark would do the chores and me holding the needles of the medicine and would have been some of my first on the swine side,

but then even the row crop, driving the 40-20 or the 730 John Deere or the 77-88 Oliver, one of those two, and pulling hay bales. You know, that was kind of my first responsibility going way back Wednesday, and it's a fond memory because that's kind of where it started. Then obviously through, you know, 4-H when I was 10 and fourth grade,

and then FFA being very involved, and being able to hold three offices in my 4-H club and three offices in my FFA career, and then carrying into Iowa degree with an FFA and the American degree as well and then that transferred into Iowa State and you know Iowa State was one of the best four years of my life and more so not what I learned but the experience I had

the university I was yeah yeah the experience the experience the people I met the the just thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and you know I was fortunate enough the people I met all my best everyone in my wedding was Iowa State and not not a knock on the people I met in high school but you really high school brought you together with your extracurriculars all right and but college really you're there in the same degree it's a passion so that the farming the animal science guys

that was all passion and you share that same interest and really gets you on a deeper level of relationship in my opinion yep so and then graduated and then came home um to farming truck well corn was This had been in 16, you know, corn was three and a half bucks. It was $8.75. And there's just not a lot of. And lands expensive. Yeah, land's expensive. So, you know, supplemental income, I had to do something different.

And that's really where I kind of jumped full force into the trucking, having that supplemental income. Because we didn't have, one, the money to pay me a full wage. And then, two, you know, there was odds and ends throughout the year to be able to stay busy. But it's just just not. enough. And then I met my wife in June of 16 and then I kind of right away knew this was probably a pretty good opportunity. So I had to, you know, decide who I had that trucking lifestyle, which ain't an 8 to 5, you know, every day. So I had to make a decision. And then it would have been

October of 16, November of 16, somewhere in there. I had a couple messages. The individual that was in charge of my position at Eicholberger's was kind of near in retirement. And, I heard, I don't know, I have three or four people saying, hey, here it is, here it is. I'm like, you know, what, why not, you know? So, still, my first mindset was I could still take a step back from trucking or farming, but then have a, still be involved in that industry I love, right? And the animal science, I'm still involved in the trucking. And I'm more of an illyical guy and a numbers guy and being able to, uh, to, to schedule all those

things. And it's more of a challenge too. Yeah. Um, so it kind of fit me, my realm, my personality and my, my, my, my, my, passion as well, but also knowing that I needed to slow down if I wanted to have a successful potential marriage. Yeah, right. And I was as a kid, I always wanted to coach T-ball or coach football, that sort of thing. So being, having, having to truck and do that would not mix, not jive. Not near as much flexibility. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, you talk, you talking about

your, your dad and your uncle, that reminded me, you know, the, well, it reminded me how old I am. because so I have fond memories of loading your grandpa's straight truck because we used to sell a lot of hogs to Oscar Meyer when it had the buying station where Hy-Vee is or go to Rath in Columbus Junction and we would, did they have one or two? Rath had it. No, your grandpa, when your, when your grandpa and your dad and uncle, when they first, started did they have one or two of those straight trucks they had uh two so we had the red one yeah and then we had the green box and we sold the green box at this auction oh i've been 10 15 years ago and whoever bought i think it was on my fair feel i want to say or pleasant plan and they still use it every now and then but we still got the 70 i think it's 72 Chevy yeah we still got it running around yeah so we would

we would we would the way our hog operation worked is we would we would sell hogs on monday we'd sell 50 or if we were really ambitious, we'd sell 100, because I think you could put 50 on that straight truck. Is that right? That sounds right. That was before my time. Because it was double decked. I think you could put 50 on there. So we'd sell 50. Then we'd move pigs from the grower to the finisher, from the nursery to the grower. Then we'd we'd we'd we'd we'd as many sows as we could to get enough crates. Then we would go over to the sow barn, to the gestation barn, and we'd start grabbing tits to see if there were any of them that were going to like pharaoh that day or our estimate for what was going to pharaoh that week then we'd wash that many crates and then we'd do it and then the next week we'd

start all over continuous flow but the the nup the nup trucking empire was an integral part of our of our operation so i mean that was i was well that was in the 70 well that was in the 70s so i mean you guys have been doing it for a long time but so you grew up you know you grew up with your dad trucking and what was that like, like did you look at that and you, I bet you loved it when you went, like when you rode along and all that, but also the not being around all the time, not being around for this or that, did that affect you? Is that, do you think that's why you were looking for, because on the one hand, you knew the truck and worked, it provided you an income,

but you also knew that if you were going to have a family of your own, You might not want to do that full time. Absolutely. The passion was farming, and it still is to this day. I'd pick farming hands over fist. Now granted, when you get married, right, you have goals together. Right. And some of them goals, whether they're short or long term or small or mighty, you know,

that also takes consistent income, right? So we go back to taking the job with Michael Burgers and then still trucking. That's cash flow because I can't just farm. Right. I mean, I bought a piece of ground, but trucking paid for that right. bet my cash flow from that pace for that. Right. So,

um, dad was very, very good about making, I don't, I can't name a event that he didn't make of my brother and I. Right. And we were, we were very involved for HFFA,

four sports apiece that he didn't, now granted he had drivers. Yeah, he can manage his schedule around that. Um, so he, he was, I'll say it again,

very good about making every event we, we were at. Um, and that's no small feat. No, no, no. But also,

you know, he, He worked hard. He put a lot of hours. And so whether it was we got back from a double header at Mount Pleasant, we get back, he's going trucking. So it just takes communication within your marriage, too. So who's going to drive who or who's going to pick him up and that sort of thing,

but also knowing at the end of the day you got to make money too. Look at that pro tip. That is a pro tip. Getting it from the best. Do you think that's the hardest thing about being a trucker is the, you know, have enough time for your family? You think that's the biggest struggle truckers face, one of the biggest struggles? Well, when trying to find someone, a driver, and nowadays, it's just like pulling teeth,

that's the first thing I say, hey, this is nights. I'm going to cut to the chase. I don't want to waste your time or my time, but it is a lot of nights, you know, and then it's not, okay, I'm going to get up at 7 a.m. and I leave at 7.30. I'm home at 5. That's not way it is because any time on the clock and a 24-hour period, there's pig loading, right? And in a seven day a week, there's only about 24 hours where they're not loading.

Right. So there's, you know, I could have a load at midnight or we have a load at 9 a.m., you know, and especially in a smaller, a smaller company, you don't have the option to pick and choose, right? And if you have 30 trucks, 50 trucks, et cetera, more than that, you have a pool of load that you can pick and choose. But also, you know, you don't want to do that because you do that. Then you send the wrong message to your other employees. Right. And vice versa.

Yeah, when we load, because we hate loading your late, we hate loading your 2 a.m. loads, but I always, when I am loading them, I think to myself, I'm going to load this week, and then I'm not going to load again for a week, or I may not load for two weeks if it's first cuts, whatever. And I think about you guys doing that every night, and I'm like, I don't know if I can do that.

Yeah, I give mad props to truckers, because it's, it's, I bitch, because it's hard for all. We don't like doing it, and you guys are doing it every freaking night, and I just, man, they're a tough breed. You got to be a tough son of a gun to do it. Well,

there's a lot of variables in that too, because, you know, let's just say you have one load, okay, but then your second load has a four-hour gap. Yeah, that's the worst. Can't come home, right? Because then you're losing your fuel, losing time,

wear and tear on the machinery. So you sit, right? Well, you need to take care of your drivers for that, or, you know, just depending on how it is, or you got to wash out. That's time. And nowadays, you wash out, I'm going to say upwards 90, 95% of the time with PED and don't want to track disease around from farm to farm.

And then, you know, what the plant breaks down, right? You know, there's so many variables in that. Or if it's first cut versus second or last cut, right now, you know, or if it's first cut, but guys like you pre-sart, well, guys will have 30-year-old barns. Yeah. Can't pre-sort. Right. You know, they have 18-inch alleys.

Yeah. So you got to figure, you got to figure, you can go to one place and you can load in 20 or 30 minutes and you go to another plate. And first cuts versus that's what you're talking about. So if, you know, a lot of places, if you're doing first cuts, you can't sort, it's going to take you every bit of an hour to load that load. Minimum. And then, you know, then you've got three trucks in a row. It's an hour for the first truck.

Well, that truck's got to get undressed. Move the truck. The next truck is I get in there dressed. There's 15 minutes, you know. So it's just time management. But you can never plan ahead because there's other variables in that aspect, right? You just don't know. We always enjoy loading Austin's truck, though.

We know you're a professional. Our favorite schedule. Always yelling. Loan like butter boys. Loan like butter. Our favorite schedule is when we get the schedule and it's 10.30, 11, 11.30 or 10.11 midnight and it's Nup, nup, nup, nup, lands. So shout out to Jonesy Jones. He is, he's always like a little ray of sunshine when he comes in there. He gives the same, how you doing, Jonesy? And he just looks at you. so let's just get it done yeah right did you already did you always know you wanted to go down this path would you read that always like i know you said you're in sports and stuff like that but was ag more were you more passionate about ag than you were sport in sports you know that's

transition you know we were fortunate enough to be uh the state championships of baseball my senior year junior and senior year but senior year you know it's when you see that someone tells you that last chapter it turns you're at the last page of that chapter and you're on the next one. It was, you can never express that to a kid. You know, you just can't until you experience it, right?

So I'll never forget the last pitch. And we lost to Harlan. It was 7-2. And we lost, and we were going through shaking hands. I'm like, wow, you know, this is the 28th July.

I'm supposed to go to Cota, start football on the 11th. I got 10 days, and it's full bore, right? You know, and that's where I asked myself, I'm like, is this what I want to do, right? Because, you know, college sports is a lot different.

than high school. You know, high school is a short term, a couple months at a time. You're onto a new sport. Well, colleges, full bore 24-7 a year at time. So I had asked myself that and I answered it quickly where, I mean, my grandpa always told me you got to go three days with a consistent decision for it to be a quality decision. You know, that's a good advice. You don't want to make a rational decision because it might be an emotional one. An emotional decision is the last thing you want to do, in my opinion. So I actually went from state baseball, went to the Ozarks for a few days. A couple toddies. And I'm like, you know, I just short and long term.

My vision, my vision guy and setting goals, and it just was not in my vision. And my goals, short and long term, didn't involve that, right? Yeah. So it was time to move on. And so then I went up on the 2nd of August to Iowa State. And luckily the guidance counselors at Washington back throughout my senior year, they said, you know, like, you're probably not going to go, but just apply. You never know.

I went up there and met with Ben Chamberlain, who was later my advisor. He's like, oh, this is exciting. I'm happy for you. I hope, you know, we'll probably set you up and we'll start you in January. I said, no, I want to start this fall, which was the 20th. And so, you know, the second to 20 is 18 days. And he's just like, oh, I'm like, yeah, I'm applied. He's like, well, this, you know, okay.

And we went over the admissions. And at that time, you know, you're two and a half weeks away from starting. Yeah. So all the busy work's already done. You know, they're just coasting until school starts. And I got a room enlarged or Mapleville, large, second floor large, and got in some bigger class. and I already had my credits transferred to transcripts.

It was a blessing in disguise looking back at that process. It was meant to be almost. How smooth that process went. So you were, yeah, because you were planning on going to Co. Yeah, football and baseball. Yep. And then you decided to make the switch to go to Iowa State. God bless him, Coach Staker at Co.

I called him on the way back from Ames and said, withdrew my acceptance. And then, yeah, and then I went up to Ames. They went to the State Fair. and then that Saturday night said goodbye to mom and dad and went to Ames. Well, I mean, it worked out though. I mean, in hindsight, you wouldn't have wanted any other way. No, and I guess more to answer Sawyer's question. It was obviously I missed sports just like any of that kid.

It was a huge part of my life ever since I was a T-ball and flag football, you know, pre-elementary. But you look back, and especially as you age, you look back and there's not a doubt in my mind where I made the right decision, you know. because like I said, I talked really about Iowa State and the experiences I had and the people I met, that wouldn't have happened if I would have went down that path. And I would have met other people and had other memories and other experiences that would have been neat and exciting. But I'm happy with the path I took. I totally agree with you what you said about not making emotional decisions. That's something that you don't really realize.

I mean, it takes somebody to tell you that because a lot of people make emotional decisions. But that was good. I like that. Yeah. Say that one more because that is, I've never heard. that before. You got to go three days with a consistent decision for it to be a quality decision. That's pretty good. Yeah, if there was a bomb button, we'd drop a bomb. We got all these buttons that we've never programmed them. Yeah, a little side note here too. If you just saw me walk

around Austin while he was talking there, I was checking the cameras because we don't have anybody up here that runs this whole deal. So I got to sometimes get up in the middle of the podcast, just make sure everything's flowing good. It's a contraption. And we've had one podcast we had to reshoot because one of the cameras quit. And it was the one on the game. And it was the one on the guest. Yeah, exactly. So it wasn't good. You do not want torques or the guest camera to go out. No, actually, I'd be fine because I look best on radio, but the guest or Sawyer, because they're better to look at. Okay, so you, you've been, so you've been in Eichelberger six years. Four and a half. Oh, four and a half, sorry. January first 17. Oh, yeah, that's right. Four and a half years. Yeah, that's crazy. So, yeah, and a lot has

happen because we went through COVID, which COVID was a train wreck, and especially logistically, because you didn't know from one day of the next if the plant was going to be open. Correct. So it was more so from the plant side of things. Yeah. You know, and I guess let's start from the beginning, South farms, right? So we had to make sure our Eichlboro employees were healthy and we had a strict protocol that we could in the CDC, just like any other company. And then obviously the drivers too, you know, or even people in the shop, or then you go downstream, then you get to people in the office, you know, they have an integral part in the success of the operation as well, and then you get to the plants, you know, how we make money is we sell our pigs, we market our

pigs. So each plant, you know, when there's, you know, 1,500, 15,000 people working in a plant in a small space, it's inside, they had their growing pains as well. So whenever they had issues. We had issues. Right. They don't have workers there. They can't, they can't harvest the meat and we can't get the pigs there. So people have asked me about this. And for full disclosure, I was still involved in Eichlberger Farms when that was going on. But I felt like pure luck of the draw, one of the best things that we had going for us, that Eichelberg's had going for them, was the fact that they actually delivered pigs to three different packers. rather than one because there were so many people that, for lack of a better phrase,

had their eggs in one basket. And when that happened, I mean, you get pigs backed up in a hurry. Absolutely. So at that time, we were marketing to four separate facilities. So, you know, there were some that had really, really good luck, and there were some that had really bad luck, you know. So, and I remember one of the facilities, we were, we sell quite a few loads to each week. and they called that Friday morning for the next week and said, hey, I got very good news.

We're not harvesting it all next week. And like, you're kidding. He said, no, at all. Which is a huge blow because it's a good percentage of our pigs. So, you know, your first thing is like, what am I going to do? I need to reevaluate the schedule. And then I need to get the biggest pigs out and then also prepare for the next week. You know, what am I going to do on the short term and long term?

because if this is going to be gone or down for a week or two weeks or three, what are we going to do? So hypothetically, we had some scenarios on what we're going to do for each section. Yeah, I think that's one of the things that people from the outside, you just don't realize, is that when you have all these pigs and all these buildings, it seems like you have a lot of space and you have a lot of options. I was just going to say that. But the problem is...

Every day, almost every day, they're loading out pigs somewhere. And every day we're producing more, there's more pigs being produced that have to leave a sow farm. Because when you build a sow farm, you build it with the idea that you're going to wean pigs twice a week or three times a week or every day of the week, depending on the size of it. And those pigs are going to go to somebody's finisher. Well, that's all planned with the idea that every week, people like us are going to empty a finisher and get it washed and get it ready for pigs. And when COVID hit and these plants started shutting down, when you can't empty, when you can't dump a building, we can't refill that building. Right. And so the domino, it's like a domino.

I mean, it just, and they just started falling. And then you have to, you don't want the pigs to get too big. So we're taking out, we're taking out energy and we're feeding them shelled corn and we're trying to slow them down. And then we're trying to find other places to send them. And, I mean, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like. like the entire industry really did a, an amazing job getting through that. I'm sure it wasn't perfect,

but like in our case, boy, because we were, we had one, site two, site two was right in the middle of that. And we had pigs, we got about half empty and then we,

we had some big ass pigs. They were big pigs. And we did end up getting them all, we ended up getting them all sold. But man, it was, that was a scary time. Well,

that's problem is you're, you're, if you're based on efficiency, those sows are still going to lean every day, right? And then, but if you're holding back all your market animals so that the window of opportunity shrinks. You know, so a lot of people would, we would stock and a half our facilities, are we in sight? Well, we had a double stock or we had triple stop. It's usually to be stock for a short period of time to get through that. And then also, like I said, we also had to, we had big pigs, you know, but then you also

got to be careful on the backside of things at the market, you know, each plant has kind of a maximum, right, for a carcass weight. So once you get exceed that, then you, then you lose value, you know, so it was a, you're right, 100% credit to the whole industry. You know, we, every company would have probably done something different looking hearsay. But I said, Ike burgers, I thought we did a very, very good upper management team and all the way through our sow employees, everyone in between, good communication and working as a team to get on the right path. And most importantly, do what's best for the pig. Yeah, and we're all still, we're all still in business so we did something right so far making money we're making yeah believe it or not we're

making some money that's good so today what is and i i mean i we i think we touched on this a little bit but what for you when you go to work on monday what what do you feel like is your biggest challenge to getting to keeping all the wheels turning uh partly with my kind i'd say right and left hand with a marketing guy getting the right pig is the right place. So we little touched on a little bit about us marketing to three or four different facilities. So with that being said, the premiums and docks are different. That mid-that how you want to market or send the right pigs. So by weight, that wheelhouse of opportunity to make profit and loss or premium in docs is different at every packer. Yeah, you're shooting, you're trying to get the right of your inventory.

of the pigs you have out in the country because you've got, you've got a barn that you're just starting to sell out of, which you don't know for sure what those pigs are going to weigh. I mean, you have a pretty good idea because you're selling the group of pigs that filled before them. So you kind of know. And days on feed. You know, you can kind of go off that. But you really don't know exactly until you get into them.

Then you got barns that you've already taken pigs out of that you pretty much know, okay, they ought to be about this. And then you've got pigs that you're getting ready to dump that you know are going to be a varied, they're going to be a varied weight because you've got everything from the tail end that are at market to the pigs that aren't going to be in the window that you want, that you've got to decide where to go to the best place. So, you know, we get a schedule. So as growers, we get a schedule on Friday for the following week. So I'm assuming I talked to the marketing guy today and he's planning on coming and,

and looking at my pigs that we have at what we call site one. And chances are they're going to take what we call first cuts out of there. So I'll get a schedule Friday and then I'll know what day I'm going to be selling pigs. And so go through how you guys start a week because you're attempting to be a week ahead. In other words, you know, when Monday comes or when Sunday night comes because you start hauling pigs for that week on Sunday night. But that schedule's already pretty much set with the exception of what can go wrong, because you know it can go wrong and you can have this or that. But then you're working on, the marketing department is working on where they're going to go get and how many pigs and all that. When do you get, when does the trouble get shipped to you as far as when does the marketing department say, all right, no, we got this many loads.

and then it's your job to figure out who's going to haul them and how you're going to haul them and all that. So on Thursday, midday, early afternoon, I will get a rough draft of a schedule that I, I preliminary did three weeks ago. So our marketing department will get me a list of loads. So, for example, like today I did 10-4. So, well, I'm a trucker, 10-4, ironically. But our marketing guy, Bob Coker, he sent me 10-4. So it's a list of loads of X amount of loads, and they are by flow.

and then also by some of the flows we feed specific for iodine level and some other necessities at plants. And I'll make a schedule. And he'll also tell me how many pigs we would like to send per plant. So I have a rough draft that I put together and then I'll put dock times in there. And then I will send that to those three or four facilities. That way I can lock in those times. So then once we get that done, now we fast forward two and a half three weeks. and then he will work on that on a Wednesday.

Filling in those blanks as to what buildings, what growers are going to provide those loads. Yep, exactly. So then I will get that on Thursday, mid-noon hour, somewhere mid-day, noon hour, and then I will start piecing it all together. So then, you know, he did it for the size of pigs, then I will do it for logistically,

and then times and the growers' schedules, turnarounds, biosecurity, iodine level, all those variables that come into that final format. right um and like it's it's it is challenging because you know you want to make the most amount of money and be most efficient but also you know what if we got pd run around or we got per's run around you got to be mindful of you don't want for you know yeah i don't want to send a guy to a dirty site to load yeah and then if i can avoid it i don't want to take him and send him to get first cut somewhere or whatever we got growers that raised 1500 had barns we got guys that raised 30 000

head or 30 000 spaces right now you're right so you know if if i got PED in one place and then not the other. I don't want to take a dirty trailer to a facility or a caretaker that takes care of a lot of pigs because potentially he could get that and then spread it, you know, so it's detrimental. So there's just a lot of different variables that kind of go into that final draft. So on Friday mornings, if I, if we're combined a next Friday and I'm just bored and need somebody to talk to, Friday morning's probably not the best time to call you. I want to tell you stories.

Thursday afternoon through about Friday 11 a.m., it's pretty wild because it's, it's It's not so, you know, moving around. It's just, it's more mentality because you lose your train of thought. You know, it's like I have, I'm going to highlight this load because it's too big, right? So I need to switch it from one packer to another packer because I'm going to get more money there. Or this is PED positive. And I need to make sure I have this highlighted and purple because, you know, it's just, it's a more of a mindset. And if someone walks in, you know, a lot of times I'll just leave or I'll go to the little safe space and I turn my phone on silent.

Just lock in. Yeah, you got to lock in because, you said, one. a stay can be a lot of money. Right. And like I said, it's just a lot of moving parts to get that final draft. What do you think is the biggest challenge as a livestock driver? What do you think the biggest challenge is for somebody that hauls pigs, cattle, whatever? I think those will go along with trying to find someone to do the job. So there's, you know, you could go work for a Walmart or a Amazon or a J.B. Hunt or something like that where it's non-live freight, right? You're hauling salsa or diapers or or just mixed feed or bag to feed or whatever.

Compared to livestock, there's a lot of overhead, right? A lot of times you're a smell like manure. You're running at nights. The USDA at plants with the consumers being so anal nowadays and social media can also be a negative effect where they're pushing these things and there's so many requirements and PETA and animal welfare. So you have eyes on you anytime you're at the plant.

And all those variable, biosecurity, You got to have boots on. You got to shower and shower to some facilities. So all that excess compared to going to another, you know, non-life carrier is hard, right? Right. And that's the first thing also with not, I was talking about hiring people. I say, do you want to do nights? But also it's this.

You know, you don't be blunt because last thing I want to do is hire someone and they're not going to follow the biosecurity rules. Right. We lose a lot of money because we broke a farm or we broke a site. And then I look back, you know, we have to be very blunt and transparent for. from the start or we're going to go backwards. Yeah, and I feel like these truckers don't get enough credit because, and I don't think most people, if you're not within the industry, you don't have any idea. So when we load pigs, today we're loading roughly 160, 162 pigs to a trailer is where we're

at. And it takes us, you know, just if we pre-sort everything, so it's going to take us a half an hour to load them if everything goes good. And, you know, you're going to load four or five pigs. You're going to, the way we do it is we have the pigs pre-sorted, and I have somebody that is running the pigs up the alley. Sawyer's getting pigs out of the pen. Somebody's running up the alley, bringing them into me,

and I'm loading them. And dad yells out the numbers. Yeah, and as we go, you know, most of these guys... He relays it back to the guy running up the alley, and he relays it back to me. They want to know how many pigs I need to get out to fill the hole. Right. And I like loading them, because, you know, you know,

because I want every pig to know as it goes on the trailer that I won. Because it is a battle of wits. Sometimes you do lose, though. We do. Don't get it wrong. Yeah, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I'm starting to show my age because I've been knocked down twice in the last year.

And I loaded last winter and I actually had my legs, my short little legs. I'm pretty sure if you would have seen it in slow motion, my little legs were above my head. and it was one of those deals that when I hit the ground, I sat there and I thought to myself, I wonder if you're going to be able to get up or not. I wonder if you broke anything. And I didn't. I felt it afterwards.

But my point to that rambling is, we load those pigs on that trailer, and we've got sort and panels and rattle paddles. And we do have hot shots, electric prods, because you can use, and we use them, we only use them if we have to, and we use them very sparingly, and there's,

there's guidelines on how you do that, but we put those pigs on a trailer, and obviously that trailer is full. And when they get to the plant and they have to unload those pigs, they, those pigs, that's unfamiliar territory, and they're all riled up, and they've ridden for three hours, so I guess I shouldn't say they're all riled up.

They're all settled down. But if they don't want to get off that truck, you got to get in there. Somebody's got to get in a confined area with 160 pigs and convince them all to get off of there. And they really can't use much of anything. What can a trucker use today? A plastic panel.

Yeah, so a standard would be a plastic panel, three and a half foot panel. And then it used to be a paddle. But now, USDA, we've seen some paddle marks. marks on the height of the animal as well as throughout into the meat and the carcass when they seem in the line. So even for example at JBS we're going to a gallon bucket or a gallon BB. Just a shaker. Shaker. Yeah, BB's inside of it. So you can't touch the pigs. It's more, you know, we use

that same product in wean pigs, but, you know, wean pigs are skittish. They can move quick. Yeah, they'll run right off. Yeah, so you shake it. That's good. But you get 300 pound market animals there that are a little more challenging. What's harder? Is it the loading the pigs on to the truck? or getting them off for you as a trucker? Probably depends. It's more so getting them off.

Yeah, I see you. You do have that electric prod. You should get, one, doesn't harm me in all, but it does help move things along. But also, you know, torque it on the head.

It's a different, you know, there's six months or five months of their life they've been in one's facility, right? Now you go to a different facility. You were on a truck, you know, five, six months ago, but now you're on a different truck.

You're going at night. You're scared, a different facility, lit up, You got, the employee has an ID hammer that tattoos, they have tattoos the hogs. So they look into that, you know, it's like, and then they're skittish, right? So, um, you're just going in there with, uh, with the BB. Yeah. And it's just, it's not easy, right?

Yeah. So you got to keep your calm, keep you're cool. And that's another thing is you're trying to get people to come drive. You know, why would you want to do that, right? You know, that is, that is, it used to pay. You know, that was, you made, you made more money on livestock compared to non-life freight, but it paid for that extra. Yep.

That hassle. Yep. But now that non-life rate's coming up. So if it's a wash or it's making more money, there's no sales pitch to keep you. Right. If someone's going to haul life freight or dry van or reefer or flatbed because it pays the same,

at the end of the day, I really don't anymore have a sales pitch to keep them here because of that aspect. Well, our whole society, we're short on labor, everything. I mean, we just are. And that, and Holland is right there with it. Oh, yeah, it's like we said before. I mean, you've got to be a tough SOB to be able to, you know, do that. It takes, you got to have some nuts.

And our pigs are always hard to load because we do such a good job that our pigs love us and they don't ever want to leave. Yeah. They get to the door and they're like, no, I don't want to go. One thing I wanted to say about those lecture prods. And I think, I mean, Dad, if you watch our TDF YouTube channel, we show loads, we load pigs. And if you watch, we don't use those lecture prods as much as, you know, these PEDA to documentaries, want to show you or whatever. And if we do tap a pig, we're not always have our finger on the trigger. Right. Like people always think if you tap a pig with the buzzer, you're got the buzzer hot. Right. It's buzzing them. And it's not always the case. If they're moving good, it's just kind of a, but if I mean, they're stuck, that's when you got to be like, okay, we need to figure it out.

But just like the trucker side of it, the loading side of it, we're very lucky in the fact that we've got the people we use to help us load are excellent. And because it's a disposition, pigs can sense, pigs can sense if you're a, if you're just pissed out of your mind. And so the calmer you stay, the calmer they are. And I think for us,

pre-sort them helps a lot. It just makes everything go better. But on the truck, when you get them to the packer, they're all facing the opposite way, right? They're all facing, that's the other thing. Well, because, yeah,

you walk into that hole and their security or that door, and they're going to turn around, right? It's not like they're just antsy and ready to jump, right? And isn't the wind like going this way? So they just want to kind of lay down. More so in the summer, because in that, in a static press, or your hog barns, you have fun. So it's going to suck that door. So you will have those fans inside those facilities, those barns, they will, they'll distribute air. So they'll pull air through that at a hog trailer. Just like, just like ventilation of a hog barn. So looking forward, when you think about, you know, a lot changed in the time that you've been there. In three or four more years, do you think that

as an industry, we will have more owner operators or more company-owned trucks, trailers, and drivers? I would say owner-operators, because the prideful thing of own your own business, but it's also more lucrative, but also lucrative is also risk, right? Your own business, a lot more overhead. But, you know, it pays more money if you want more money. But that's, you know, common economics, econ 101, supply and demand, there's a high demand or constant demand to haul pigs and low supply drivers that needs to drive price, right? So, and we've had to do that, along with all other people in the industry, is raise our rates because of that. Yeah. And you had a point when you started, like the number owner operators you have today versus what you had when you

started. I mean, it used to be even in an area, it used to be all company guys, right? Because And then also benefits, you know, these larger companies offer benefits. But now it's- We have no benefits, so don't sign up for that. So that was another reason. But now it's a large percentage of owner operators because they get their own business and they make more money. But I think short and long-term, that's the way it's going to be, have to go.

Then, you know, also, too, with trucking companies, insurance. Insurance is not cheap, you know. So, and you got road use tax every April, or sorry, August. and if the tax. And there's just a lot of overhead in that. Dad, the only benefit that I get working here is sometimes I get to see you get ran over by a pig and I don't have to yell at you. That's a benefit to me. Oh, yeah, that's true.

And I bet it's a benefit for you too. If I get ran over, you like seeing me get pretty mad. Well, that's, I have selfish reasons for that. I've said this before. The thing that I like when Sawyer gets really mad, not just mildly pissed, but when he gets really mad, he looks just like my dad when we used to raise pigs. So it's kind of like, it's kind of nostalgia because I can see Lawrence Whistler read. Many.

Yeah, it's like, it's a giant. Actually, it's a giant Lawrence Wistler because my dad was smaller than I was. But yeah, and he sounds just like him. You wouldn't think that a frame that big could put out such a small, squeaky, mad voice when he gets really pissed, but you can. Yeah, I'll do it to you. So I'll ask you something. do you think that there's any as it's harder to find drivers

do you think that the industry may get to the point where we may have crews that actually load the pigs completely on the trailer and then when you get to the plant that unload them so the drivers aren't doing it just because you can't you may be able to find people that are willing to drive the truck but they're not willing to be the guys in there doing all that

that's a challenge too is there's a challenge too is there's years ago that plants were like, you know, we're just going to do this ourselves. And as a driver, that's great because that, we talked about overhead and, you know, smelling like the new or dealing with these pigs and having USDA watch you, that's overhead that's not enjoyable. So the plants, like, we'll just take it over.

Well, the challenge that that is, they don't want the liability either. You know, let's say they hit a pig wrong or they do something wrong or harm the pig in a certain way. It's all on them. Yeah, and I think that's the toughest there is because, you know, us as farmers as the ones raising the pigs, we know, we know very well because we've had all our

training, we know how to handle the pigs, we know what you should do and what you shouldn't do. But when you go and hire somebody, and the other thing is, there used to be an endless supply at farm kids that grew up on a farm just like you, just like us, that had some experience with livestock. But today, when you go hire a driver, you may be hiring somebody that has no experience handling livestock. And so it's one thing to get somebody that can drive a truck and do it in the middle of night and back up and hit a shoot up a shitty gravel lane that some farmer that'll remain nameless didn't put enough rock on. It could be us. It could be us.

But then you got to rely on them because they're taking the liability for whoever they're hauling those pigs for. It's a lot of pressure. Yeah. I mean that. For somebody that doesn't know. Yeah. that and you train i mean you can sit through as much training as you want to and read it off a thing but until you're actually in there doing it it's a whole different deal and then you got to be a

good then then the farmers get pissed at if you it pissed at you if you don't load the pigs good and they're like well i'm just you know yeah it's a lot you can do all that we just all that overhead or just go work for walmart or amazon well that's a thing and and that's where it's it's a challenge right now you know because uh everything like i said i mentioned non-live freights have gone up or sorry rates have gone up but also Also, that's one big variable, in my opinion, but the second large one is that just like farming, the average age of a farmer is 58 to 60, right? Well, the average age of a livestock collar is not far behind that, right?

So you need turnover on the bottom end to replace those older gentlemen, and there's not, because those young guys are seeing this excess of work and overhead, and they're like, why would I want to do that? I can make this much money or more money than this. If you're out there right now and you're like, man, I want to be a trucker. call awesome up calling up trucking and they'll set you up and they'll get you hooked up

hopefully if you got some experience we want the experience ones but yeah we need you everyone needs you it's a need no it is i mean that's just like we talked about last time if you're somebody if you're a young person and you want to make a living

and make a very comfortable living the number of ways you can do it right now are vast and wide. The thing is, they involve labor. Right. The problem is we've raised a whole generation that think they're going to go get a finance degree and they're going to get a job at a bank

and they're going to be a vice president of something and they're going to make $100,000 off the get-go. And we've got plenty of those people and we got plenty of people that would like to get a check for doing nothing, apparently, because there's plenty of people that want that. And I'd like to do that too, but I don't know, I don't qualify.

I saw something a while back, and it was a gentleman was talking, it was Facebook, believe it or not, but it was a video, and they talked about how this generation, they wanted the immediate satisfaction. Yeah, they want that, 100 grand now. You know, they don't want to enjoy the process and learn and the trials and errors and the work for it.

And I would agree with that. Totally. And I see myself do that, right? I read that. I'm like, well, he's right. And then I was trucking. one night and I like trucking me I spend time in thought I like the process and I was I'm like you know I'm guilty of that I'll be the first one to say right it's these right here

yeah because it's all right here it's instant instantaneous you can find shit on the internet right away you can see everybody's new how their lives are going instantly it's it's this well you guys need to get off that because what I was going to say when you were talking about the average age at truckers if you want to be the next zoosnup shout out to zoosnup you think Austin's a legend. Zeus, Nupp's a legend. Yeah.

Tanner's a legend too. They're all, they're all pretty, they're all pretty, pretty good at the social arts. Let's just say that. But anyway, your old man,

he fits that category. What's, what's Austin's best party? He's got something that, you're gonna put me on the spot. You got it. He does this at every party

and there's nobody else that can do it as good as he can. What Nup has, and I think most good truckers are like this, but what I love about NUP is you can take him to the World Pork Expo to any bar and he'll be like, let's get some toddies and he'll get a toddy. He'll get a crown and Coke tall and he'll work that entire room and he'll drink from that glass the whole time and two hours later he'll get back to the bar and he's still got the same glass because that CDL

is valuable and he doesn't want to become. And I think he likes taking advantage of people because he's figured out that as he works the room, everybody else, their sensibilities and abilities get lower, but yet Nup stays razor sharp. So he just, he just, he takes advantage. He's a smart, he's a smart cookie. I am. I, well, I'm a truck driver, don't, yeah.

Well, that means you're borderline genius. Yeah, we claim we're smart, but sometimes we're a few brick, short of a shit house. Okay. Well, we've made, we've made pretty good rounds. on here. So we'll ask you a bonus question. And this is, this is, this is can be as, this can be as, uh, politically generous or as snarky as you want. So what is the best? What is the best brand and model semi out there today? You know, um, I was raised, uh,

from the beginning with a Kenworth. Uh, that's what all my family, all four of my, my two brothers and my dad, that's our personal trucks. Kenworth. Um, um, um, um, Um, dad is as he's gotten older, he's also gotten wiser. So fuel economy kind of goes a little more up his, uh, totem pole. So he has an aerodynamic, uh, Kenworth T660. Yeah. Um, where my brothers and I have W-9s. Yeah. So it's more the flashy the lights. Um, you always want to make sure you're inside the barn before an up truck shows up because you'll get smoked with those bright lights if you don't get out of the way. Yeah, there is a lot of lights. You'd swear it was Christmas in July. Yeah. I thought you were going to say you just want to be out of the way because when they come in, it's like guns blazing.

Oh, yeah. They don't, they don't slow down for anything. But back in the day, when, when your dad first started, when he got his first, did he start with a cab over? He started with straight trucks, transition to cab overs, then transitions. So the cabs, were those Peterbilts? Most of them were Peterbelts, yeah. Yeah, so. He bought, we have the 89. You got it back, didn't you? Yeah, we got the 89 back. Yeah, we got the 89 back. And then we also got, that's an 89 Peterbelt 352, and then we got the Kenworth KW 100 that's burn orange. That'll make you appreciate what you drive today.

Yeah, exactly. So when I was a kid, I had a good friend of mine that moved from Washington, Iowa to Perry, Iowa. And in the summertime, I would ride, I'd go see him once in a while, and we'd go to Adventureland, and I'd ride with Harry Walker in that cat, one of those cab over. from the buying station Washington to the plant in Perry. And I was probably only like 10 or 12. And Harry looked kind of like Bigfoot to me, you know, back then.

But, well, he kind of looks like Bigfoot now a little bit. But I remember being little and thinking, you know, this thing sure does kind of bob a lot. And I've often thought that, man, that would work a guy back in the day. A lot of them are spring ride, right? Yeah. Spring ride and then where you sit, you sit right on the axle, right? So every bump you hit, you feel from your toes to your ears. Oh, man.

But you're right. I mean, it's a huge pride thing when you do it. But one day a week or one load a week or whatever, it's pretty neat. But yeah, every day on a day, there ain't no way I'd want to do it. Absolutely not. Favorite trucker snack. You're hitting the gas station. You got to get one snack.

What the hell? What's going to keep you up at night? Bang, the old bang energy drinks. Those are absolutely a necessity. more. Slim gems. You get the slim gems? I'm a snack guy, so I'll get like the sour gummy worms or a snicker, not snickers,

twizzlers or something of that nature. There you go. That sounds like that. That's the bad. That's the hell is wrong with you. If I go to the movie, I got to have a box of dots. That's the only time I eat it. And I don't drink pop anymore.

I haven't drank pop and I don't know how long unless I go to the movie. If I go to the movie, I got to have dots and I got to have a big mountain dew with lots ice. And then I come home and I can't sleep. Can't sleep. I just stay up all night. I guess I should get a truck. Yeah, I should.

New employer. If you get hard up enough, I might be able to haul one load a week. A little week. See if we could work something out. Never know. I haven't known. Stranger things have happened.

Absolutely. Okay, well, Nup has got a lot of things to do. He's a busy, busy man. He's a busy guy. His phone's been going off. He's, he's got a lot of people to talk to. Hopefully good news, but probably not. Probably not.

Well, we thank you for coming. We appreciate it. And I hope that I hope that you all got some value out of this because this is the this is one of those conversations that there's just a lot of stuff that you don't realize everything that goes in to um feeding the world yeah because at the end of the day um when we put these pigs in every pig you put in you got to take out and we didn't even touch on this but you know uh how many loads of feed is there in a group of pigs i had that written down i can't remember how many semi loads of pit or how many semi loads of feet it takes so not only are

are you trucking the pigs in, trucking the pigs out, but you got to get all that feed, and it takes an army. It takes an army to make the food, and this is just on the pork side. This is why we're doing what we're doing. Yeah. So just connected.

We should probably give mad props to anybody that's trucking, produce, meat, livestock, because without it, our society would cease to function pretty quick. So I'll leave you with that thought. We appreciate every one of you and we appreciate the comments and we hope that, you know, you got value from this. And if you did, we just asked that, you know, you would share this out to your friends, follow us on YouTube, follow us on Instagram, follow us on TikTok. I'm not really on the TikTok much other than when Sawyer's nice enough to cut up the clips. He does all the work on the clips, so I don't have anything to do with that.

Yeah, leave us for reading, leave us a review. That's what can help us out the most, guys. So we really appreciate you guys watching and listening. Awesome. Thanks again for coming on the show. Appreciate it. Keep trucking. Keep on trucking.

Thank you very much.