Taking to the butcher-day before or day of slaughter

[Bestoutwest]

IMO - if they are not nut cases and this is a "good" processing plant, they should be fine either way.

I called the processor, they pen by individual customers. He said the biggest possible issue is that sometimes they have hogs processing at the same time, and the cattle won't leave the trailer until the hogs are moved out of sight. I think, for ease of transport and to not feel rushed, we'll take them the day before. I'd hate to have a preventable rodeo from being in a time crunch morning of. Thanks for the replies. By then, also, the jittery steer will be hopefully so used to associating people with food that he'll be less spooky.

We train them to grain. Then we put the bin in the alley leading up to the trailer. We'll back the trailer up and put the grain in there for a few days. If we have one that we don't particularly trust, we use a bin with a string tied to it. Put grain in a bin at the foot of the trailer, then some in the bin in the trailer. When they start showing interest to getting in the trailer, we slowly pull the string and they'll go right in.