When a farmer asked The Farming Forum for experience of a new 14ft tri-axle livestock trailer, what came back over eleven weeks was an audit of the whole livestock trailer market: the dominant maker challenged on build quality by its own long-term customers, challenger brands winning converts on design, prices sharply up on the last published list, and a waiting list of two and a half years for the most sought-after build.
By TFF News | 23 October 2026 | Machinery
The conversation drew 107 visible contributions in the Machinery section between 4 April and 29 June 2026, and had been viewed 6,352 times when counted on 23 October. Contributions attracted 168 reactions, an average of 1.57 per contribution. The figures describe one conversation among the farmers who chose to join it. They are not a representative survey of the sector.
The market leader on trial
Ifor Williams Trailers, established in 1958, describes itself as Britain’s largest manufacturer of trailers up to 3,500kg gross weight, with more than half a million built. One contributor put the everyday evidence plainly: “Out of every 100 trailers you see at the mart,at least 90 of them will be Ifors.” Another replied that at his local markets the same count would belong to Graham Edwards.
Others thought the picture was moving. “I would say they make up less than 30% now.” wrote one, crediting rivals’ improvement, and adding: “I certainly don’t see Ifor’s commanding a premium on the second hand market like they used to.” Those are opinions from individual farms, and the balance went the other way too: “Ifor are probably one of the few readily available or with very little wait in many cases”, one contributor argued, a real commercial advantage.
Build quality, in owners’ words
The heaviest criticism came from long-term customers describing their own machines. A dairy farmer wrote: “run ifors for last 30 years , got a new 1 last year and its awful , gates made of monkey metal”. A second contributor, whose home farm changed its 14ft tri-axle every three years, remembered: “Every time we changed it, we moaned that it was worse than the one it replaced.” A buyer who had been eyeing a new one read the reports and decided: “Sounds like im best looking for a lightly used 2nd hand one.”
Older examples drew warmer words. A 20-year-old 14ft tri-axle that cost £3,000 a decade ago “Holds 5 cows and sheep decks still fit ok. Tows well.” The complaint is that new ones no longer match the old. After looking over the current range at a show, one long-term owner concluded: “it felt flimsy and crudely put together. It’s off the list now.” These are individual owners’ accounts; Ifor Williams was not part of the conversation and they went unanswered by the company.
Design is doing the selling
Decks, gates and loading design was the largest theme, with 28 contributions, and it is where the challengers won converts. A hill farmer who traded in for a Bateson Eurostock was the conversation’s most detailed witness: “Sheep decks and door ramp are a convenience unmatched.” “It’s built strong, but by design not by adding more metal”, he wrote. A second Eurostock owner agreed on the headline feature: “the decks are so easy to put up and down, nothing needs to come out which is a big bonus”.
A farmer who swapped to a Graham Edwards 14ft tri-axle last year listed what the move bought: “Lower to the ground, slam shut gates, easily movable gates, wind in sheep decks are great, travels well and stronger made.” Safety sold one order on its own: “After almost getting my head smashed in by a loading gate that a beast kicked I went to Graham Edwards fully bandaged up the next day.” That buyer specified an extra rear slam gate, waited eight months, and reports the firm now quotes around eight weeks, “built to order rather than buy what happens to be kicking about”.
At the top of the market sits Gamic’s hydraulically lifted deck. “IMO they are the best sheep trailers available, BUT there’s a 2yr+ waiting list”, wrote one sheep farmer. An owner three seasons in reported his 14ft tri-axle weighed 1,600kg on the scales and “cost £10500 then.” Another chose his “without remortgaging the farm to get a Houghton”, the dearest name in the conversation, which drew the shortest endorsement: “Houghton , do it right once”.
Prices move, waiting lists stretch
Farmers Weekly’s buyer’s guide of April 2021 listed a Gamic 14ft tri-axle with hydraulic deck at £10,000 on an 18-month waiting list, a Bateson Eurostock tri-axle from £5,250 plus £675 for decks, and an Ifor Williams 14ft tri-axle from £6,200 with decks. Five years on, the Gamic owner who paid £10,500 guessed a new one at £16,000, and the waiting list has lengthened with the price: “I’ve just ordered another, only 2 1/2 years to wait”, wrote a repeat Gamic buyer. Even the readily available incumbent now carries a “4 / 5 month wait on an Ifor if you order a new build.”
The weight question over bigger boxes
The appetite for 14ft and taller trailers runs into a fixed legal ceiling. A car or pickup licence covers trailers up to 3,500kg maximum authorised mass under the gov.uk towing rules, so payload is capped by the gross limit, not floor area. More than one contributor acknowledged that a big trailer filled to its floor space with finished stock can pass that ceiling, a risk discussed more casually than an enforcement officer would like. On the 7ft-tall variant now on forecourts, one contributor was dry about the running cost: “Fuel economy went out the window when you chose to tow a 6′ tall brick of a box, can’t think 7′ makes much of a difference.”
Back-up decides the repeat order
Sixteen contributions turned on what happens after the sale. One Bateson owner reported the rear gate support had given way twice; another confirmed newer builds carry a stiffener plate, and described the firm altering his trailer after its low ride height fouled the lorry-height loading banks at Scottish marts: “Bateson took my trailer back and modified the bottom section of the slam door so it would clear the ramp.” Graham Edwards took its knock on factory-fitted tyres, which one owner replaced wholesale after they “Just kept popping. Mostly sidewall issues.” The firm told him there had been a supply problem during Covid, and a second owner backed the component’s long record.
What the trade should take from it
None of this is a survey, and the incumbent still owns the mart car park in most districts. But the pattern is the one that costs market leaders slowly: the complaints came from 30-year customers rather than rivals’ owners, the warmest praise attached to designs the leader does not offer, and buyers are accepting waits of up to two and a half years to get them. If used examples no longer carry the resale premium that justified changing every three years, the economics that built the dominance weaken too. The question for the trade is whether the volume builder closes the design gap before the queue outside the small factories gets any longer.
Read the source conversation and analysis
Read the full conversation on The Farming Forum here.
Download the full conversation analysis as a slide deck: 14ft tri axle livestock trailer: conversation analysis (PDF).
This conversation had been viewed 6,352 times on The Farming Forum when counted on
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