$4.00 to $4.15 a loaded mile and prorate up. Costs are sky high: tires, repairs, parts, insurance, equipment replacement costs, labor, work comp. insurance, licensing, taxes, not to mention fuel. The talk around our industry is this: Livestock transportation companies are going broke because they are hauling too cheap. Know what your costs are. If you don't know what your cost per mile is then you shouldn't be in business plain and simple. Some people have this idea that just because they have a check to cash that they are making money. We have the highest fat cattle prices in history. I am a rancher and a cattle feeder. Good cattle feeders make money by locking in feed costs and by purchasing feeder cattle delivered to their feedlot that have a hedgeable profit margin. A successful cattle feeder wants a successful trucker. Transportation of cattle is the most important aspect of the beef cattle industry. We are headed into a very busy time so charge a rate that makes trucking profitable and don't haul for what it pays. A feedlot or rancher can't cash in on his or her profit unless they have a way of getting those cattle to market. The beef cattle industry desperately needs good truckers, so let's not pretend they don't buy hauling for nothing and losing money.