Retired Trucker's Wide Ramp Makes Cattle Loading Silent

The first sound you notice when loading cattle onto trucks in far north Queensland is actually no sound at all.

John Lethbridge, a 73-year-old retired truck driver, has turned his bucket-list dream into reality with a massive steel loading ramp that harnesses natural herd behavior. Instead of forcing cattle up narrow, stressful single-file ramps, his design stretches 1.7 meters wide so animals can walk together like they do in nature.

"I just had this urge," Lethbridge said. "I'm going to try and get all the good ideas I've ever seen in my career and plus add a few of my own and try and give to the industry the best ramp that I possibly can."

The problem was decades in the making. While Australia's trucking industry evolved to carry up to 200 cattle per load, the loading infrastructure stayed stuck in the past. After five decades moving livestock, Lethbridge knew the old narrow ramps designed for smaller trucks were creating unnecessary stress and danger for 40 million sheep, cattle and goats transported across Australia each year.

He convinced his mate Shawn Chapman, an engineering company owner, to help bring his vision to life. Chapman admits he was skeptical at first about the "old fella's" wide ramp idea, but agreed to build a prototype they could scrap if it failed.

The full design includes sheeted gates, clever yard configurations, and purpose-built catwalks that keep workers completely separate from animals. Cattle can't see dogs or handlers, allowing them to focus only on their herd mates walking ahead onto the truck.

The Ripple Effect

Vet scientist Geoffry Fordyce, who specializes in animal welfare, says transportation stress causes infections, diarrhea and significant weight loss in cattle. "We just evaporate live weight out of animals with stress. It costs a lot of money to stress animals," he explained.

Research has focused heavily on animal health before transport and after arrival, but almost ignored the actual loading process. Fordyce says that's exactly where the stress peaks, making Lethbridge's innovation particularly powerful.

Russell Lethbridge, John's nephew and a director at Meat and Livestock Australia, estimates the stress reduction could earn farmers between $20 and $50 per head through better animal preparation and handling. With an estimated 9 million cattle slaughtered last year alone, those gains add up fast across the industry.

The workplace safety improvements matter too. Workers can now manage loading from protected catwalks, eliminating the risk of being injured by stressed animals in confined spaces.

At $300,000, the full system won't fit every budget, but the creators say the simple principles behind it are free for anyone to adapt.

Lethbridge laughs about the project's success: "Things can be so simple and yet we don't grasp it."