Homemade ramp allows one man to load cattle

When Gerry Wilson, a retired veterinarian farming in the Orkney isles, loads his fattened Simmental cattle for market, there’s minimum fuss and no need for help from neighbours.

It is easy because of his home-made loading ramp. Gerry is no engineer, and not the best welder on the islands, but his skills were sufficient to make his ramp using scaffold pipe and heavy box-section, and a steel checker plate floor.

“Cattle are always reluctant to walk up a steep ramp, directly into the dark wagon, and the wide loading ramp gives them the chance to change their minds and turn around,” he says, and all who have ever loaded cattle know this.