The angle: shallower than you think
Livestock read a ramp with their feet, and a steep ramp tells them not to trust it. Aim for the gentlest slope you can arrange — around twenty degrees as the absolute steepest, and noticeably shallower whenever the vehicle, the yard or a loading bank lets you manage it. Sheep and goats scramble up slopes that would stop cattle, and horses are the most suspicious of all, but designing for the least confident animal keeps the whole load moving.
If your trailer's ramp is fixed and steep, you can still cheat the angle: park so the ramp foot rests on higher ground, back up to a loading bank or a rise in the yard, or dig the trailer wheels into a shallow hollow where that is safe and permitted. Even a few degrees off the slope changes how the first animal walks up, and the first animal's confidence is what the rest of the load follows.
Footing: cleats, grip and a dry surface
A smooth ramp is a skating rink to a hoof, especially with the polish of wear and a film of mud or dung on it. Fit cleats or battens across the ramp, spaced so hooves land between them and catch rather than slide — roughly a hoof's length apart for the species you load — or cover the surface with ribbed rubber matting made for the job. Metal ramps benefit from both, because steel is the slipperiest surface of all when wet.
Hose and scrape the ramp before loading day, and let it dry. On the day, a scatter of dry bedding or sand over the surface gives hooves something to bite on and has the bonus of making the ramp smell like the yard and the trailer rather than like metal. Check cleats for loose screws and matting for lifting edges as part of the routine, because the day a cleat gives way under a cow is the day loading gets dangerous for everyone.
Sides, gaps and the meeting with the trailer floor
Solid sides on a ramp do three jobs: they stop a leg slipping off the edge, they block the view of the drop that makes animals baulk, and they funnel the animal forward so there is nothing to decide about. Where solid sides are not possible, rails close enough together that a leg cannot pass between them are the minimum. Flapping tarpaulin and rattling loose gates undo the effect — fix anything that moves or bangs before the first animal is brought out.
At the top, the ramp must meet the trailer floor flush, with no gap wide enough to catch a toe and no step up or down. Animals feel the transition through their feet and a clunk or a wobble at the top is where they stop, back up, and start an argument. Check the ramp hinges and springs while you are there: a ramp that bounces underfoot feels alive to a horse, and not in a good way.
Light, noise and the walk up
Animals baulk at contrast — a dark trailer mouth at the top of a sunlit ramp looks like a hole, and shadows striped across the ramp read as bars or gaps. Park so the light falls into the trailer if you can, open vents and windows to lift the gloom inside, and avoid loading with the sun directly behind the animals. Keep the area around the ramp foot clear of spectators, dogs and machinery, and let one person do the encouraging while everyone else stays quiet and out of the eyeline.
Assign the ramp to someone by name on loading day: on KinsLe, Care Teams lets you set the angle check, the footing clean-down and the side-and-gap inspection as duties for your loading crew, each marked complete with a timestamp before the first animal is brought out of the pen.