AJ Wiechmann

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145 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2024 last heard Aug 2024

AJ Wiechmann’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Farm4Profit Podcast · F4F - AJ Wiechmann Trucker and Pilot - after we try some wine! · 22 Aug 2024 podcast

So are your loads mostly for the same clients that you've had for a couple of years or how do you go about? It's not a hot shot for livestock. I assume it's clients you've worked with. Yep. Yep. So I have a couple of bigger integrators that I've been hauling for. And it's been since 2012, so what's that, 12 years now? Yeah.

So that's some of my bigger ones, and I've got some very small family-owned farms I've been hauling for 20 years. What's the value add in a trucking company versus you versus someone else? I wouldn't even know what to ask. I mean, what sets you apart? Cool Peter belts. Yeah, that's part of it. That's part of it. We do have nice equipment, a lot of reliable equipment.

My goal is to always be on time. Obviously, I can't control all that, but I pride myself and my guys, of course, to be on time more than not. We can't help, obviously, when a pack and plant gets us backed up in a day or something like that or a washout, you know.

There's some variables in there, but for the most part, I pride myself on being on time and just having a good service for my clients and my producers at Hall 4, like Corey. Yeah, I will say, you know, so A.J. Halls, Our pigs, I don't line anything up though for that. So I have no say in who hauls my pigs. It's the company that I grow for. I gotcha. But I don't know.

I've been farming hogs since 2013. AJ has had some trucks on our farm since then. Not consistently though until about 2020 was when we switched to our new pig supplier. I tell you what, the value that added is, yes, they are on time. I don't have to worry about it.

When it's just a revolving door, if you don't know what trucking company is coming to your site, who the driver is, all that kind of stuff, it's a little nerve-wracking when they're going to show up. Because if you've got three loads in a day, and you start loading the first load, the first load is maybe supposed to start at 7 o'clock at night, and then you start loading a half hour early or so,

It may show up at 6.30, but the next guy that comes is an hour late. All of a sudden, you got people there that you're paying, sitting around, you know, and it just ruins everyone's day. And everyone gets backed up. Yeah, all you guys got other things to do, too. And when you're waiting on trucks, I mean, that ain't no good. Because you're paying them guys to sit there.

You could be off doing other things or having your guys off doing other things, you know. Yeah. So how much, when I think of selling cattle, we always talk about shrink on the cattle, you know, depending on the haul and how far. Does the hauler make a difference on that to, like, practices? It could have some difference to do with it, yes.

Mainly in, like, your loading practices or how, what we call a stocking rate, you know, how many animals you put per compartment. If you don't use your head and don't spread them out as best you can, you cram the animals in there and, yes, they're going to shrink harder. So, yes, there is something to do with that too, and there again, I'd probably micromanage that a little bit.

You know, if I know that the guy going there hasn't done this very much, I'll say, hey, this is how I want you to load the trailer. Yep. Just to make sure that they don't, you know, just because they're maybe not educated or aware of how to do it. And everyone's got to learn at some point, but that is the nice thing about AJ's people is they mostly have experience and experience.

Tell you what, when you get someone in there that doesn't know what they're doing, that does make or break a load and load times. You get a good driver in there, you can load them as fast as you can take them to them. Or sometimes you've got to wait on the driver stalking the truck. And sometimes that's the pigs. I mean, you might just get a bad group of pigs or livestock.

And I can't speak to sheep or... cattle or anything like that, but I can talk to the pig side of things. Yep. Yeah, and as far as driver experience goes, you know, once in a while you're going to get a new guy in there that doesn't understand, but he has to learn.

Somebody's got to teach them somehow, you know, they've got to learn somehow. Yep. And trust me, I've had some guys that start off pretty rough, and they are some of my top guys right now. Yep.

I mean, they've never hauled livestock before they come to me, and, you know, I've had some complaints about it, but after they got educated, you know, they understand what's going on now, and now they're some of my top guys. Yep. So we're going to do a reality show, Tanner. We're going to put you as the trucker and I'll just sit side and we'll go load and see how we do.

Oh, I think we'd be just fine if you've got me driving.

It's relaxing for me when I'm not doing it full time and they're my in-laws cattle. I mean, I knew what my load time was and I knew I could get there. Probably the biggest worry I had is the reliability of the equipment. When I worked at the fire department probably 10 years ago, we had a pot tip over right at Highway 30 and Interstate 35. And it's just interesting.

It's all aluminum trailer that we had there. And I went through sawzall blades. I remember calling on the radio. And they're like, what do you need? And I'm like, I need sawzall blades because we were cutting out all the animals that were in because it was tipped sideways. Everything was bent up. The gates were all busted in there.

And we just, man, I just remember going through like a hundred sawzall blades. But we were just cutting away at this trailer until we got everything out of there and offloaded it to another trailer. And it's interesting, though. Just a side note. Rollovers are never good. I want to know, you said you've been doing this for 20 years. Yes.

There's been a lot of things that have changed in the livestock trucking world in the last four years, let alone 20. Yep. How was it back in the day? Man, it was a lot easier. You know, back then I didn't think that. It's been 20 years ago. I was 19 years old, 18 years old. And I thought that, I mean, it was pretty overwhelming at that point for me. But now looking back, it's like, man,

They're trying to push all these e-logs on us. They're trying to push all these hours of service rules and all that stuff. And back then, all you had to do was fill out a paper logbook, and you could budget however you wanted to.

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