Transport of livestock

Domestic animals were first carried to Britain about 4000 BC, by neolithic farmers who transported the stock in their frail skin-covered kayak-like craft. In these boats, which were about twelve metres long, the farmers would have been able to carry two or three cattle, or about ten pigs, sheep or goats. The legs of the animals were tied and they were laid on furs or brushwood in the bottom of the boat. The length of the journey must have been limited to short distances, as the livestock could not have been fed or watered while on board. Later, in their oak-plank galleys, the Romans and Norsemen carried more animals around Europe.

William the Conqueror used oar and sail-propelled ships to carry his warhorses across the Channel to England, as shown on the Bayeux tapestry. Then, during the Crusades, the transport of horses became a recognised business, with the spaces between the decks being divided into temporary stalls with hurdles. The horses boarded the ships through a loading door in the port side of the hull, which gave access to the lower deck, which part of the ship the horses shared with the ordinary pilgrims who could not afford passage in the much more spacious aftercastle. The food supplied on these ships was extremely bad, so many pilgrims carried their own hens, wine and cooking utensils. The medieval ships were usually ballasted with sand and the passengers could use this for storing eggs and wine.

Medieval ships were also used to carry more exotic animals, as contemporary manuscripts illustrating the life of Marco Polo show his little carvel-built ship loaded to the gunwales with camels and elephants.

Cortes carried horses for his Spanish cavalrymen when he invaded Mexico, and it was the shock of seeing these huge four-footed beasts that helped him win a psychological battle against the Indians. The horses were stowed in the central hold of his caravels, rigged in broad leather slings throughout the journey, so they would not damage themselves by falling over in the unstable craft. Their hooves barely touched the planking of the hold as they swung from the slings like pendula; the poor animals must have been most uncomfortable, and it is improbable that they could eat much while in this position. Some of them certainly died of haemorrhaging during the voyage, and this page 23

Horses being loaded for the journey to New Zealand.

could have been due to rupture of intestines or the caecum. Boarding the vessel must have been a terrifying experience in itself, as the horses were lowered into the hold by winch and pulley—a procedure that was repeated with horses being loaded and unloaded for the journey to New Zealand over three hundred years later, as we see in the drawing from the diary of an early settler, William Webster Hawkins.

The practice of carrying livestock in sailing ships to provide fresh meat, milk and eggs was firmly established by the seventeenth century, and continued throughout the nineteenth. When the East Indiaman Wentworth left London in 1699, it carried fowls, hogs, sheep, geese, turkeys, and a couple of live bulls. Mr Barlow, who kept a journal while on board, complained that if the bulls sustained bruises during a rough spell, the flesh when butchered was not nearly as tender. Carrying livestock for food was important at the time, as the taking on of fresh provisions during the voyage was not an event that could be relied upon; the Dutch did not enjoy particularly good relations with the British, and yet controlled many of the south-east Asian ports.

Even when safely in New Zealand, animals were destined to be carted from place to place. With the establishment of stud farms for thoroughbred race horses in the upper North Island, the Waikato River became a route for transport of horses to and from race meetings. In a photograph from the Roose collection (held by the Waikato Art Museum) we see the five-year-old Funny Fox being carried by a paddlesteamer to a meeting. The complications of such a journey turned out to be worthwhile in this case, as Funny Fox finished third in her race.

Another picture from the same collection shows some intimidated-looking cattle being loaded onto an even stranger craft—an LST, a wartime troop landing craft. These animals were being transported to the Pacific Islands. This export of live animals to various parts of the Pacific basin still continues today, but now under much more convenient conditions by air. This means of transporting stock was pioneered by the Ruakura Research Station, which used the plane pictured to take a trial shipment of calves to Fiji. This venture was most successful and air transport of livestock is becoming more and more common today.