I feel horrible...dont make the same mistake.

[crystalchik]

I went to a livestock animal auction tonight with some black copper marans cockerels. I havent been in so long, and I didnt know that the majority of the people that attend it now are only there to buy animals for food...no more pretty backyard chickens. Anyways, I was overcrouded with roosters and I just wanted to place them. I figured since they were pure bred and so beautifully colored, they would be safe.
After I sold them for only $5 each, which was already upsetting, a guy came up and grabbed all 8 of them by the legs and went to carry them off. They were scared and screaming (they've never been held by their feet before.) He stuffed them into a tiny cage next to the rest of the animals he had collected throughout night. I found out later that some had been purchased to be resold for food, and I didnt know the fate of the others.
Im 16, and I love my chickens, and I put my heart and soul into raising them and keeping them happy and healthy. I made a horrible mistake tonight that I wish I could take back. I will never make it again, but for the 8 I sold already, its too late. I know how you all love your birdies too, and I know you will understand how upset I am. But please dont make the same mistake as I have. Do not think they are going to good homes, when the majority of them will end up on someone's plate.
Please pray that my 8 babies will somehow be okay. I love them and miss them so much, and I am so sorry. I have been in tears since I parted with them.

By the way, I am a vegetarian. I feel like a hypocrite having attended that animal hell; they are treated so inhumanely, like items, like they cant feel pain, like they are just objects. What was even more painful to watch was how the day old baby chicks were grabbed carelessly by the handfulls, many hanging by their heads and feet. How could people be so heartless?

 

[canada-goose]

I'm sorry they didn't end up going to a happy home.

 

[Mahonri]

We live and we learn.

 

[thndrdancr]

I am so sorry! I know exactly how you feel. Even tho I have extra roosters, I love them all and would hate to see them go for just food and treated badly.

Our auction around here, the weekly one, is just like that, most seem to go to buy them for food from what I have seen. Now the twice yearly exotic auction brings people in looking for nice birds for their flock, but the weekly one I attended..oh the horrors.

My friend went to sell her geese there, and even tho they were mean to her chickens, she loved them. They went for $5 apiece and she ended up asking the man that bought them what he was going to do. He told her they were to be sold as meat. She asked if she could rebuy them from him and luckily he agreed, so she ended up buying her babies back. I would have felt the same.

I am so so sorry, many hugs to you. I would have cried too, heartbroken.

 

[Soph xo]

I'm vegetarian also, and I'm so sorry you had to go through this

I can't say I empathize because it's never happened to me, but my sympathies. They lived a good life while in your care, and if worst comes to worst they will go to chookie heaven

 

[RocketDad]

Sad to hear, but not everyone feels the same way about animals. Even food animals should be treated with a bit of respect.

 

[greathorse]

Quote:
I dont agree with animals being mistreated ever, on the other hand If I were a vegetarian that struggles with the thought of others eating animals I could not in good conscience raise a single one of them. If you cannot keep one rooster for every hen (and no one can) then you must assume that a certain number of those roosters are going to be dispatched in one way or another. Every producer of birds large or small, unless they are eating them must sell or kill about 9 out of every ten roosters that are produced, it is simple math.

The majority of all roosters either get thrown into the grinder at hatch (large hatcheries) if you are purchasing only pullets or eaten after they mature when produced by small breeders. If I were you and have this conscience I would reconsider my decision to keep chickens.

 

[JROOSTER]

I agree with Greathorse with one exception. If you keep chickens you should not breed chicks as you will always have some you need to get rid of. If you just enjoy the ones you have then there will be no need to go to the auction.

 

[duckyfromoz]

crystalchick

I am so sorry about your experience. I raise ducks and have sold a number of them at auction- But a different kind to the one you have just experienced. I am so very lucky to have spoken at length to almost all the buyers of my babies- and so far none have been sold to anyone who wasnt wanting a breeder or pet. I use to only have Pekin ducks- But have now swapped to Indian Runners as they are very rarely eaten here in Australia. I would be disgusted if anyone even carried my ducks by the legs. I have hand raised almost all of my ducks- and they are tame and used to being handled. I am always there at the end of an auction and unpenn the birds.. Give them one last hug, a kiss on their little beaks or head, and carefully place them in a box or carrier. I often cry as I see them being carries away- But it helps to know they have gone to loving good homes.
I know I wont ever see tham again- but often find myself thinking of one or other of them- even thought there has been hundreds over the years.
I hope you are never in a position to have to sell at an auction again.

 

[deerman]

Yes sad you had to see that....trouble with any animals males are a surplus. Things to think about. If people eat eggs then roosters will be killed, if you buy wool then rams will be killed as lambs.

Just a fact of life animals will be kill for food, still no reason they should be mistreated.

Even honey bees the males are killed by the other bees before winter.

So yes if you raise chicken the surplus males , will end up being killed, even if you find home for them, that person may end up selling them.

Hope you don't have to see you chicken going to meat, but even the hens will end up like that if you sell them.