LIVESTOCK farmers across the country rely heavily upon hauliers to transport their animals to and from market or to other destinations, and for many of those farmers based in the north and the North-east, it’s Iain MacEachen Transport which they turn to.
Iain MacEachen, who hails from his family’s croft on South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, has been in the haulage industry for many years after moving from the island at just 16-years-old to work on a farm near Inverness. That was before driving a float for Barclays Transport, at Portsoy, for several years.
But, in April, 2007, the retirement of haulier, Willie Duncan, in Huntly, allowed Iain to buy over the business, giving him a head start with a good customer base and two six-wheeler Scanias and an articulated Scania.
“We concentrate on hauling livestock as I feel if you focus on just one commodity, you make a better job of it,” said Iain, who now runs three Scania artics, each with a four-deck Houghton trailer and one Scania eight-wheeler from his rented council-owned yard at Dufftown, situated 18 miles from Elgin. A fifth lorry is hired in at peak times during the spring and back-end.
“I wouldn’t really like to be hauling anything else. Livestock is a real interest to me and what I’ve grown up with. You meet a lot of great folk in this job too, some old and some new.
“The majority of our work is done within the North and North-east, with trips to seasonal sales in the Western Isles and Outer Hebrides, and the occasional trip up to Orkney.
"To keep driver’s hours manageable, it helps to haul within your own area, so we only ever really go south of Perth when transporting as many as 40 bulls to Stirling Bull Sales or pedigree sheep down to Carlisle,” added Iain, who lives in Dufftown with partner, Lynne (who keeps on top of paperwork and farms in partnership with her dad on a nearby unit) and sons, Lachlan and Donald.
Each year, Iain and his team, which consists of Gary McConachie, Charlie Lockhart, Alex McPhail, Rory MacDonald and part-time drivers, Keith Stewart and Robert Law, transport around 12,000 prime cattle and 20,000 lambs, with roughly 7300 cattle transported to ABP at Perth, 2000 go to McIntosh Donald at Portlethen, while another 2000 go to Scotbeef and between 500 and 600 go to Woodhead Bros, at Turriff.
Store boys who are selling at Thainstone, Huntly and Dingwall play a big role in this haulage business, too, as around 4000 stores go to Thainstone each year, while 1000 go each way to Huntly and Dingwall.
It’s not just trips to the mart which keep the MacEachen team busy though as 12,000 wintering ewes and hoggs are transported each year, which involves two shifts back and forth from farm to farm.
The closure of Orkney’s slaughterhouse has also meant that every Tuesday, a MacEachen lorry will head to the harbour at Aberdeen to take a small amount of butchers’ cattle off the boat, before transporting them up to Munros Butchers, at Dingwall, where they’re processed.
And, once every fortnight, two buffalos from the Bremner family’s well-known Orkney Buffalo farm are collected off the boat at Aberdeen and taken to Millers of Speyside's slaughterhouse in Grantown-on-Spey.
While Iain has managed to build up a well-known and good going livestock haulage business over the past 11 years, costs are continually increasing when it comes to the price of fuel and renewing vehicles.
“When I first started up in 2007, I paid about 82p per litre, whereas now you can be paying around 102p per litre. It’s just like everything else, though, you have to work with it.
“The cost of lorries and trailers have increased too, as my first ever trailer which I bought new cost £108,000 and then 10 years later I bought a similar one at £130,000. The lorries have jumped from around £95,000 to £130,000,” explained Iain.
There’s also unique challenges with this job and one which Iain will never forget was the foot-and-mouth outbreak in September, 2007.
“It was my first year in business and the outbreak really did shut everything down pretty quick. Like today, I was only hauling livestock and had three floats, so I couldn’t do anything else.
"Luckily, there was still stock coming in and out of the West Coast, so we were able to work two or three weeks out of there. That was a real saviour for the business,” said Iain.
He reckoned the biggest single issue today for Iain and the other drivers is inadequate washing facilities at some marts and slaughterhouses and the time in which it takes to wash down an artic after transporting a load.
“It can sometimes take up to 2½ hours to wash lorries, especially after four decks of sheep," he told us.
“Some washing facilities at places are excellent, but others maybe only have one hose, so you’re left waiting in a queue to wash before you can move on. This then holds up the driver and leaves them fighting against time to get to the next customer who is waiting for you,” said Iain.
He added: “If there’s big cattle sales at a mart, we’re on the road at 5:30am to get the beasts there. Bigger sales can sometimes not finish until late at night and you’re then sitting about waiting to take cattle home. They’ve got to be emptied out that night too, so this all has a knock-on effect on drivers' hours.”
Weather has seldom had an impact on journeys for Iain and the rest of the team over the years and, luckily, they managed to avoid the worst of last month’s Beast from the East. “Because we were only travelling as far south as Perth, we managed to avoid the worst by sticking to the A9 entirely, rather than using the A90, Aberdeen to Perth.
"It did add on a bit more time but in the end, we only had to cancel one load on the Friday of that week and that was further north,” commented Iain.
“I always buy a lorry which is well kitted out with good tyres. You need good drivers, too, that can handle these conditions and luckily I’ve got a great team of them. It has to be really bad for us to get stuck in snow.”
But, aside from the ever-increasing costs and day-to-day difficulties within the haulage industry, according to Iain, there is no better job suited to him.
“I love my job and am really lucky to be based where I am. We get to haul some of the best stock in Britain and travel through some of the bonniest areas.
“There really is nothing better than emptying a load of good quality cattle at a mart and then seeing them go on and make a good trade,” concluded Iain.
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