Had a great experience in Melbourne last Wednesday watching 350 head of Holstein heifers being loaded onto a Qantas 747 freight carrier bound for Hanoi.

Hannaford Stock and Land had been involved in the purchase of a large proportion of these cattle through David Blanch, who did an outstanding job in organising and dealing with the Vietnamese.
The absolute professional organisation of the loading of cattle from midnight, prior to departure, into specially designed wooden crates, which also have internal mats that absorb most of the cattle waste products. These crates are all individually weighed and fed into a computer, which then places them in a strict order that allows for the trimming of the plane through the correct weight distribution. Once the plane arrives, and whilst taking on around 90 tonne of fuel, the crates are loaded through a large cargo bay door, fore and aft sides by scissor lifts. The amount of preparation and organisation that goes into this prior to loading, allows for the cattle to be loaded in approximately 45 minutes. Another interesting statistic that the Loadmaster for the plane told me, was that these planes spend approximately 14 out of every 24 hours in the air, seven days a week. These cattle would be on Vietnamese soil by a little after midnight that night our time.

This particular plane was going from Melbourne to Hanoi, Hanoi to Bangkok, Bangkok to North America, North America to Europe, Europe to Malaya and Malaya to Australia, which was expected to be completed in nine days.

Hasn’t the world become a small place these days………………..