562 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



In loading your car of mixed animals, see that the ones that will he 

 unloaded first are most easily gotten out. In St. Louis, as I understand 

 it, cars of mixed animals are placed at the cattle unloading chutes first. 

 You can readily see that if the cattle are in the rear of the car, with your 

 partitions up and other animals in the way, to unload the cattle first ne- 

 cessitates unloading your hogs first, then taking out your cattle, and 

 then reloading your hogs, and then shooting them back to the hog unload- 

 ing chute, and in that way possibly make a loss of considerable weight 

 due to shrinkage. 



Then, in the seventh place, in ordering your cars, please order defi- 

 nitely and in writing with the agent. Don't make it an oral order, don't 

 phone and ask simply for a car without mentioning as to whether you 

 want a 34, 36 or 38-foot car, and than if a 36-foot car is set in and you 

 have got live stock enough to fill a 40-foot car, try to put them all in a 

 smaller car. You can see that that is one of the causes that tends to 

 swell the number of dead animals at destination. If the agent fails to or- 

 der the car you want, you have no way of proving it unless you have your 

 order in writing. If you give your order in writing you have some way 

 of showing what kind of car you ordered, and you should get exactly 

 what you want. 



In the next place, if the car has several inches of manure in it, 

 altho it is the duty of the carrier to furnish you clean cars, don't think 

 you are going to make money by not cleaning it out. Clean it out and 

 get it in good shape with fresh bedding before it is loaded. Try to watch 

 these different things, and for this reason you should realize that the 

 collection of claims on dead animals is one of the most difficult things 

 to do at the present time. Of course, the carriers are liable for all loss 

 shown to have resulted from their negligence. Of course, they are not 

 liable for animals that die from natural causes. You can not convince a 

 railroad that that is true, and at the present time most of your claims 

 on dead animals will not be settled for much more than 50 per cent, and 

 in some cases you will have to bring suit to get that. So I say, watch 

 those things, because a dead animal is certain to result in loss to you 

 unless you take out live stock transit insurance. While I am not an 

 agent for that insurance, if you want to be fully protected, if you want 

 to play safe, you will have to take live stock insurance, unless you want 

 to fight the railroad and fight them in a long-drawn-out litigation, because 

 they won't pay much more than 50 per cent in deadage claims unless you 

 can show some specific act of negligence in your behalf. So that those 

 are some of the things you can do to reduce the number of claims. 



There are also two things I might mention how you can make your 

 claims stronger after you get into trouble. You have a claim, say, for 

 animals lost in transit. Supposing you list seventy hogs as having been 

 placed in the car, and it turns out at destination that you have only sixty- 

 seven, and you file a claim for three hogs. The shipper will at once 

 challenge your claim. Count the animals, not after you get them in the 

 pen, but after they are put in the car; then have an assistant do the same 

 thing, so that if the thing comes to a show-down and you do have a claim, 

 you are able to file the affidavit of at least two persons that you loaded 

 the number of animals claimed in the car. 



