Livestock Operations: Research

 Before I go on this topic here is a link:

USDA Census of Agriculture Historical Archive

I got it from Al Daumann and it’s from the USDA’s historical archive, which means that you can use this link to go back and look at agricultural production in just about any COUNTY in the USA. It goes back to about 1840 in most cases, and I found it very interesting.

As I mentioned earlier I originally supposed that hogs would be the most prevalent  livestock from WV in 1952, based on the knowledge that pork was the primary meat of choice in the  United States before WWII. The vast amounts of beef consumed by the US Military during WWII apparently turned the tastes of the nation towards beef after WWII.

-BUT-

After a quick look at this website you can see that cattle is the primary livestock out of WV followed by Sheep, with Hogs a distant third (Sheep production was over twice that of hogs in 1954).

My double deck stock cars will still have a use, I just need to start shopping for H.O. Scale sheep with which to dress the stock pens.

On that note I found a cool modeling tip for implying hogs or sheep inside stock cars; small oval balls of clay. They add weight, and they look like hogs through the slats, my guess is with a color change, they could look like sheep. What do sheep look like through the slats of a moving stock car from hundreds of scale feet in the air?

Sheep are subject to the 28/36 hour rule, and must be unloaded for rest, feed, and water. Unlike hogs they do not need cover/ shade. 

They will still require crews to spot double deck cars for loading ( Now I need to start building those double deck loading ramps).

What kind of stock shipments do you model? How do you bill them? Do you pay attention to the 28/36 hour rule? When re-loading rested livestock will you consider playing the home road-foreign road stock car game? There are many simple ways to modify simple stock shipments across your layout to get more play value out of your investment.

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