Kenneth “Suk” (pronounced Sook) Eade is a rancher, lot feeder, live animal trader and a softly spoken gentleman based in San Ardo California about 200km south of San Francisco. During October I travelled to Hawaii with Angus and Margi Adnam who first met Suk through John Quintana who was an old cattle trading mate of Suk since his rodeo days. During late 2021 Angus kindly introduced me to Suk who put me onto his partner Bernie Teran based in Douglas, Arizona. Bernie was importing live cattle from Mexico through the border fence into both Arizona and Texas.

Photo by Margi Adnam: Suk (pronounced Sook) Eade left, Keoki Wood, myself and Angus Adnam far right.

Last week I wrote an article for Beef Central describing how the Hawaiian beef industry finds that live export of young feeder cattle to mainland USA is one of their best options to maximise returns. Suk has been involved as an “exporter” from and an importer to (dairy cows) Hawaii and the US for decades. The Jones Act prevents foreign livestock vessels transporting live cattle from Hawaii to the US so transport on container vessels is their only option apart from prohibitively expensive airfreight.

Obviously, this trade is not actually an export process but simply an interstate movement of livestock with very few regulations by comparison to international live animal traffic. Cattle only need to be identified by RFIDs and visual ear tags and obtain a Certificate of Veterinary inspection (free of disease) from a government accredited US veterinarian to be eligible for transport to the US.

The “exporter” and his staff are responsible for the day to day animal health and welfare of the stock. The only other regulatory input from government relates to the construction and design of the containers. Even here the government is only concerned with the overall specifications of the box to ensure that it is suitable for standard container freight and handling purposes with general design specifications for ventilation, feed and water supply.

The exporter can choose their own design features with respect to the internal construction of the box including internal subdivisions and where to place feed and water sources. 328 animals were sent from the big island of Hawaii in 5 containers while a further 121 head were shipped in 2 containers from Kauai, a small island to the north west. We were lucky enough to travel with Suk as he prepared and shipped the animals from his processing depot at the “Lazy 5” ranch not far from the famous Parker Ranch near Waimea on the island of Hawaii.

Loading density is limited by the specifications of the container and the average weight of the animals. Government is not involved so the exporter is the one who decides on the actual loading density for each container. In the case of the consignment that we observed, the cattle with an average live weight of 202kg were loaded according to their group weights. Most were loaded at 60 per container except one container with the smallest heifers which was loaded at 74. Each deck has internal dimensions of 12.025 mt x 2.352 mt = 28.28 sq mt. This means that on average each animal had a loading density of 0.882 sq mt. Under the latest Australian ASEL 3.3 regulations 202 kg animals must have a minimum density of 0.777 sq mt so these Hawaiian animals had significantly more space than Australia’s minimum requirements. Even deducting 2 sq mt from each deck for the space taken up by the feed and water troughs the individual animal space is still greater than ASEL minimum requirements. The voyage to the US takes 5 days.

As you can see from the photos below, this very long-winded container freight process has many expensive steps including the fact that to export one container with stock it is necessary to have at least one empty flat rack container beside it so essentially one livestock container needs to pay for two container spaces on each voyage.

Without giving Suk’s commercial secrets away, he advised that the freight per head to the US with all costs taken into account was in the order of USD$200 per head or close to USD$1 per kg. Ironically, this is remarkably similar to the rule of thumb calculation for the all up cost of the sea freight for Australian feeders to Indonesia at AUD$1 per kg ish.

Farm gate prices for these Hawaiian feeder cattle (weaners) vary according to the usual considerations of sex, type, weight, quality, distance from Honolulu etc. but as a rough average across the whole consignment the producers were paid AUD$6.90 per kg live weight with heifers attracting about 6% less than steers.

Suk confirmed what we had already been hearing about the US beef industry that the breeder herd and calf drop remain at record lows due to the ongoing drought. With forecasts for the drought to continue in the US for the next year, it appears that the demand for feeder cattle and possibly even young breeders from Hawaii once the drought has broken might well push up island prices to a level that gives the local cattlemen a much greater return. For the same reasons the Australian industry is also likely to be a beneficiary of much higher prices in the US when this very long drought finally comes to an end.

The very beautiful Lazy 5 Ranch at Pu’ukapu, just outside Waimea on the big island belonging to Guy Schutte is contracted by Suk Eade to collect, process and truck the animals he has purchased for export to the mainland. Note the front of the hydraulic crush in the roofed processing area on the far right. There are no ticks in Hawaii so the only pre-export treatments are individual weights, ear tags, a pour-on for internal parasites and rejection of any animals that are not within the tight weight requirements or are not fit to travel.

Suk has 16 of these custom-made containers which when not in use are stored at the Matson port container storage area at the small Matson port of Kawaihae about 20 km from the ranch. Suk owns the containers but the Matson freight company supplies the trailer bases.

The rear of each double deck container has two conventional container doors with 4 internal gates for loading.

The containers are built from aluminium at QingDao in northern China at a cost of around AUD$100,000 each delivered Hawaii. Net maximum livestock weight is 14.3 tons. Given the low loading densities used this net livestock weight will never be approached.

Internally these containers are split into upper and lower decks. Each deck has two feed bunks and 3 water troughs. The corrugated aluminium floors are covered by non-slip rubber matting. The barred windows are hinged to provide access to the interior of the container to allow for filling and cleaning of the feed bins and water troughs.

Note the large drainage pipes in the two front corners of this lower deck. There are also two at the rear to allow for water from the upper deck to flow onto the floor of the lower deck and out through the circular drain holes seen above where the rubber matting meets the front wall. Drain holes are also present in the sides and rear of the bottom deck. Containers are washed out daily once the vessel is at sea.

Suk checking out the container before it is backed up to the loading ramp.

Guy getting the double decker loading ramp ready to load.

Each deck of cattle is sent to the weighbridge (just to the top left out of the picture) where their weight is recorded immediately prior to loading into the container. If the net weight for each deck of the container is not exactly right then animals of a known weight are taken out or added in as they walk towards the loading ramp.

Guy’s daughter Nasaiya watches the cattle flow easily into the bottom deck.

The feeders appear quite comfortable and relaxed once in the container where there is already feed in the bunk if they are interested. Loading took place during late morning.

Once the containers are delivered to the Matson port parking area the rear doors were opened. Guy and his daughter connected all the water troughs to the water tanker (left of the photo) using a network of hoses.

My photo is not very clear but this is a large barge being loaded with containers for the Matson daily service from Hawaii (the big island) to the island of Oahu where Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii is located. The main export container port in Honolulu is a short distance from the famous Pearl Harbour naval base. The barge trip from Hawaii to Oahu is completed overnight and takes about 8 hours.

After containers are unloaded in the port of Honolulu they are parked on hardstand where the stockman who will accompany them on their voyage to the US takes over their care and management. He arranges connections to a water supply just as in the above photos and tops up the feed bins with pellets. The same pellets are used at the processing ranch, on the Matson barge journey and during the voyage to the US. Livestock containers are some of the last to be loaded onto the ship which usually sails later that day.

The cattle containers are loaded in two layers with a flat rack on either side of each container to ensure good sideways airflow and to allow the stockman easy access to the feed bunks and water troughs during the voyage. The container stack with the cattle boxes is only 1 container deep so both the front, rear and both sides of the containers are open to fresh air at all times during the voyage. This view is of the front of the containers facing aft.

Containers are washed out every day once the vessel is in open water. The rear of the container with the double doors faces forward to allow for greater airflow into the containers. One or both doors can be opened or closed depending on the need for more or less airflow or protection from bad weather.