When Good People Do Bad Things:
Understanding Abuse at Auctions
Why is Abuse so Prevalent at Livestock Auctions?
Auctions create extremely demanding work environments.
Hundreds or even thousands of animals are sold at auctions within hours, and workers must keep up the pace to move scared, exhausted, sick, and injured animals in and out of pens. Workers experience dehydration, hunger, and exhaustion as a result, which often leads to impatience and subsequent abuse.
Here’s the order of operations at an auction:
First, animals are unloaded from sellers’ trailers and placed into pens. It’s normal for animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs to not be given food or water while waiting in these pens for auction. The reason is that the animals are sold by weight, and buyers don’t want to pay for food and water weight inside animals. So, many auctions will deny food and water to them, even for animals that arrive the day before an auction takes place. In this way, neglect is built into the system for profit.
On auction day, animals are moved from holding pens individually or in groups into the auction ring, depending on how the customer or auction wants to sell them. A buyer will purchase the animal(s) being shown, and the animal(s) will then be moved out of the auction ring and into other pens.
The entire process means workers must move stressed, frightened, and often feeble or injured animals out of pens to the auction ring, out of the auction ring into alleys, and then into another pen. It all has to be done before another animal, likely for a different buyer, is released. If an animal collapses from exhaustion, is scared and runs the wrong way, or fights against workers, the entire process can come to a standstill for that one animal to be dealt with. The auctioneer stops talking. The buyers sit and wait. Everything stops. All of the pressure comes down on workers dealing with a terrified animal trying to get away from them. The response from workers is predictable: violence.
Workers often resort to violence to make animals move.
Animals are beaten, shocked, dragged, and thrown. Workers are often ordered by management to move downed or slow animals by any means necessary. The value of the animals to purchasers, or even the fact that they are living, feeling beings, is disregarded under the stress of the work environment. Abuse becomes not just a norm, but an assumed necessity. Refraining from abuse becomes a “fault.” Working at an auction, the constant screams of animals and their offspring crying out for one another becomes background noise. Animals that fall from pain or exhaustion are viewed as problems to overcome instead of living beings that should be given compassion. The go-to method for dealing with “downed” animals is to continually shock them with a cattle prod until they get up, which many are ultimately unable to do.
In such environments, workers often commit atrocious acts of abuse. Even teenagers working at an auction as their first job, with no animal-handling experience, learn that abuse is not only normal, but mandatory to avoid being scolded or fired. Many auctions are in rural communities where people rely on each other and everyone knows everyone else. Working at the local auction means being accountable to your neighbors and friends, which creates a greater incentive to use any means necessary, including violence against animals, to keep up the frantic work pace.
People Like You and Me: Stories of Individual Workers
The stories below are written by SEED’s undercover investigator. We have changed people’s names to protect their privacy.
At an auction in rural farm country, teenagers are hired to work the auctions, bringing only the experience from their farms. The town has a population of less than 2,000.
Audrey, a seventeen-year-old girl, focused on her job amidst the chaotic environment, struggled to keep up with the pace. Exhausted and dehydrated, she received the rare encouragement from our investigator alone. Yet, as the workday dragged on, her frustrations led her to drag baby lambs and goats by their legs in fits of anger, mirroring the abusive actions she saw around her. Audrey’s behavior wasn’t driven by a lack of compassion but by an impossible situation and learned behavior from others.
Audrey’s Story:
In a rural western state, the workers at this livestock auction were polite and respectful. Stewart, a twenty-year-old, worked hard to get the job done and was respectful of his coworkers. Yet, his actions towards animals were brutal. Stewart dragged goats by their legs and jabbed newborn calves with his truck key to make them move. His actions were not born out of malice but from learned behavior in an environment where cruelty was a means to an end.
Stewart’s Story:
At another auction, a young worker named Robbie was overshadowed by more experienced workers like Mike and Aaron, who seemed to derive pleasure from abusing animals. Robbie, seeking acceptance and guidance, imitated their cruelty.
Robbie’s Story:
These stories highlight how young, impressionable workers learn to normalize abuse in such environments.
Customers: Complicit in Cruelty
Customers (both buyers and sellers) often tolerate and even engage in cruelty against their own animals at livestock auctions. This acceptance creates a culture of cruelty, where abuse becomes normalized.
The Different Kinds of Animals at Auction
Cattle:
- 80% of cattle producers sell through livestock auctions in the US.
- Animals, including newborn calves and adult "cull cows" (cows that are sold when no longer profitable to the dairy farmer) are moved quickly and often abused, especially as they collapse more frequently from exhaustion and illness.
- USDA regulations prohibit the sale of downed cattle for human consumption, leading to abuse in an attempt to make the animals stand and walk.
Sheep, Goats, and Pigs:
- Smaller animals like sheep, goats, and pigs suffer more abuse due to their size.
- They are often kicked, thrown, dragged, and shocked.
Poultry:
- Many auctions sell various species of birds, as well as small mammals like rabbits, often under harsh and cramped conditions.
- Birds are stressed, deprived of food and water, and overlooked due to their perceived lesser value as compared to mammals.
- Chickens, despite their intelligence and empathy, are victimized the most at auctions.
Understanding the reasons behind the abuse at auctions and the individual stories of workers and animals can help us recognize the need for change in the animal agriculture system. By addressing the root causes and promoting compassion, we can work towards a more humane treatment of animals.