How delivery works here
A cattle guard is 1,000–1,800 pounds of welded steel, eight to fourteen feet long. It ships LTL freight — a shared semi trailer — and freight is real money: typically $500 to $1,300 anywhere in the lower 48. Here's exactly how we handle it, because how a store handles freight tells you everything about how it'll handle you.
The price you see is the price you pay
Enter your ZIP on any product page and we compute freight from actual carrier lane rates — the same lanes we book. That number gets charged with your guard, once, at checkout. No "our staff will contact you," no second charge on your card two days later, no uncapped surprise. Freight is a pass-through: we charge you carrier cost plus a small handling buffer, and if the carrier bills more than we quoted, we eat the difference.
Farm and ranch delivery is the default
Carriers charge extra to deliver anywhere without a loading dock — they call it a "residential" or "farm" fee, and it applies to essentially every ranch gate in America. We price it in by default. If you're shipping to a commercial yard with a forklift and a dock, uncheck the box and the quote drops.
The one thing we need from you: a way to unload
You'll need a tractor with forks, a loader, a forklift, or a telehandler on site. The delivery driver cannot unload a cattle guard — and we won't sell you a liftgate, because no LTL liftgate platform is big enough to hold one (they max out around 60 by 48 inches; your guard is 96 inches or longer). Any seller who charges you for a liftgate on a cattle guard is selling you a service that can't work.
When it arrives: look before you sign
Walk around the guard before signing the delivery receipt. Bent rails, cracked welds, gouged coating — note anything on the receipt in writing, take two photos, and call us. Noting damage on the receipt is what preserves the freight claim, and the claim is our fight, not yours. We'll make you whole and argue with the carrier ourselves.
Timeline
Your guard is built to order — typically 1–2 weeks at the factory. Transit after pickup runs 1–2 business days regionally and up to 4–7 cross-country. The carrier calls before delivery to set a window; nobody shows up unannounced with a semi.
Two guards are smarter than one
A second guard on the same shipment adds roughly a third of the first one's freight — the truck is already coming. Multi-entrance ranches and county buyers: this is your discount, and it's built into the cart automatically.
Freight questions
Why does every other store show $0.00 shipping?
Because their platforms can't weigh the product. We checked: major sellers carry zero or placeholder weights on every cattle guard listing, so their checkouts literally cannot compute freight. They charge your card for the guard, then call you later with the freight number. We think that's backwards.
Is your freight number really final?
Yes. We quote from real carrier lane data, add our handling buffer, and charge it once at checkout. If the carrier bills us more than we quoted you, that's our problem, not yours.
What if I live at the end of a dirt road?
That's most of our customers. Farm and ranch deliveries are priced in by default. If the driver genuinely can't reach your gate — low bridges, soft roads — the carrier will call and arrange a meeting point, which is normal out here.
Can you deliver to Alaska or Hawaii?
No — no LTL carrier serves them for this freight class. Lower 48 only.