30,000 Sheep a Week, and Beer and Petrol as Well, by Leylands in the Argentine
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W/HEN the ancient sheep market of W Buenos Aires was located in the „centre of the city, meat factories, slaughter-houses and refrigerating plants grew up all around it. But a central livestock market is neither embellishing nor hygienic for a modern city, and a few years ago the authorities transferred it to a new site about six miles away.
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The market handles mostly sheep intended for coniumption in the city, those for export being transported' in bulk by rail direct to the meat factories, and., as after the change of site the purchasers used to drive the sheep the six miles to the slaughter houses, it was not long before the inhabitants of Buenos Aires began to complain that they were being sold " tired " meat.
If an animal in an exhausted condition be slaughtered, its meat will be tainted.
One man saw his opportunity. He bought two lorries to save the sheep the walk, and founded what, to-day, is the prosperous Transportadora Argentina Ganaaera (Argentine Livestock Transporters) concern, operating a mixed assortment of ten Leyland vehicles, including GH, QH, SQ. and Buffalo models, all with double-deck or three-deck livestock bodies and hauling trailers .equipped with double=cleck bodies. Others marked the success of the concern and imitated it, but they have all been absorbed, except for one competitor with whom there is now a working agreement.
Each of the Leyland and trailer outfits does at least two trips a day, carrying an average of 250 young lambs per trip, and rather less with a mixed load.
Tne method of loading is interesting. The sheep enter only at the rear of the trailer, passing into the lorry across a 4-ft. bridge formed by pieces of the bodywork which hinge downwards. There is a bridge for the upper decks, which are loaded first, and one for the lower. The animals enter the trailer through an enclosed ramp which narrows to a bottle-neck only wide enough for one sheep at a time. Having thus " walked the plank" it is slaughtered immediately it reaches its destination. The animals, incidentally, are led up the ramp by a decoy sheep which has saved its own life by the special aptitude it shows for the work.
The Buenos Aires sheep market is open on only the five weekdays, and as transporters strongly. dislike their vehicles being idle every week-end one _ or two of the livestock machines and trailers make the 300-kilometre run over the flat earth road to the little coastal village of Lavalle en Ajo, carrying to a petrol station approximately 9,000 gallons of petrol in drums. For the return journey, it is usually possible to get a load of sheep.
Sheep and petrol do not constitute the only loads of the company, which also runs, under contract, an entirely separate fleet of Leyland Beavers. Buffaloes, Bisons and Badgers, and trailers, to carry bottled beer in cases from the outlying Bieckert Brewery to a central distributing depot. The two Badgers are tractors which haul six