Looking for people who have experienced horse auctions?

Question

If you have not been to a horse auction (the cheap ones is what I'm talking about) then please do not answer using your opinion.
I'm not after opinions, i am after facts, possible statistics and stories. Pictures would be nice too :)

Now for people who have experienced horse auctions, what are they like? How are the horses kept? How long are they kept like that? Where do the majority go once they have been auctioned off?
Stories and experiences would be nice :)
I'm doing this for a feature article i need to write for school and i have not been to a horse auction as my state only has 1 and it is about a 10 hour drive.

Thankyou for your help :)

Answer 1

Horrible and exciting. There's a lot of chaos at auctions. You show up and cars and trucks are all over the parking lot. Trucks are unloading horses so they're all neighing as they run down ramps. We usually watch a few trailers unload and it's hard to see how terrified the horses look. They're herded down chutes and almost every auction worker carries either a long stick or a cane. They use them to direct the horses and hit them if they venture to close to them. There is a long series of chutes and gates and the auction workers get extremely angry if you end up in the wrong chute when they're trying to close the gate. (It's very confusing, at least the ones I have been to, so it's easy to end up in the wrong place)



They tend to keep the riding horses in the pens closest to the auction house. There's usually only one or two horses in a pen there, and that's where most people gather. Most people stand outside the pen and just watch, and usually one or two will go inside the pen and talk to the owner. The auctions I've been at let you ride the horses, so we always end up dodging some idiot kid galloping a horse up and down the aisle ways. The auction workers do not use their sticks and canes on these horses.



Further back, you get the unbroken horses whose owners tend to dump them there and leave right away. You can get up to twenty horses crammed into a pen together. A lot of these horses have injuries, a lot of new ones, either from the trailer or the handling they receive from the auction workers. They're terrified and sometimes they get into fights. There's not usually many people back with them.



Even further back you get the skinny, sick horses. They're put into the back because most people don't like to see them. There's usually only one or two horses in a pen and it's just...sad. They don't give any of the horses food or water to keep the pens as clean as possible. Some horses are dumped as much as a week in advanced, and I've heard of some people taking a week to pick them up. They will give them hay if they're there for a long time.



When the auction begins, the kill buyers get front row seats. They usually have special chairs for them at the very front. At some auctions they give you numbers, and at others they don't. They start with the riding horses. Those are obviously the ones most people are interested in. The owners lead them in, or sometimes an auction worker, and they get ridden and lead around. Sometimes they chase them around to show their gaits. The most I've seen one of these horses go for is $8000 (Canadian) and some of them don't get sold at all. The owners of these horses have the right to refuse any offer.



Edit- Ugh, my answer is too long...it won't let me post it all. I'll try to email it to you... sorry!

Answer 2

I have beent to this type of auction, but don't have any statistics for you. If you are writing an article for school, it seems to me that you need to do some research. You could call auction houses and interview people who work there. Also I think you should contact horse rescues. They usually keep an eye on this type of auction, and may be able to tell you stories about some of the horses they've rescued from auctions. They could also tell you how many horses they estimate go to slaughter from the auction.



I bought my current horse for $500 because the owners were likely going to send him to an auction. They bought him at an auction intending him to be a beginner lesson horse, but it turned out he's very green and somewhat hot. I was not shopping for a horse, but this horse has a great personality and I was afraid that an 11 year old green broke horse would not find a good home at an auction. Here is a picture of my boy once he put on some weight and I got the neglect suffered by his teeth and hooves corrected. http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL1397/6188092/23735681/395773781.jpg

Answer 3

I have been going to auctions for many years. We have had one every Sat in out county, That was my every Sat thing to do. I have bought some great horses there for cheap and sold for more. one for $400 Reg. filly. sold in 3 mo at auction for $2200. Several for under 400 that I have sold between 15 hundred and 2000. One I bought for 400 and sold the next year for $2500.





At one of our local auctions all the broke horses are ridden through first, two weeks ago there were only a few that went for near $700. My daughter bought two nice young broke geldings for under 700 she will get them fit and worked and probably take them to Ca. to sell them. There were a lot of mares that were ridden through that were under $300. one went for $150.



After the ridden horses are taken through the loose ones come in. A lot of them are young and unbroke, or possibly someone has tried to break them and have given up and dumped them. They would be risky cause you never know what has been done with or to them. Old ones and lame ones. The meat buyers will not take a blind or lame horse anymore so I guess the owners have to take them back home. I do not think the Meat buyers were even paying 10 cents a pound for the ones they haul to a slaughter house.



At these auctions some sellers will dump them off at the auction a day or two before the sale and pay for the feed if they cannot be there. The horses have to have a brand inspection, coggins tests.

Most of the horses are picked up after the paper work is done and taken.

Answer 4

I used to work for a dealer, and I went to auctions almost every weekend. I've been to hundreds, all over the country.



Each one is different. Most are done at a large facility like a fairground or racetrack. The stalls are usually good quality. Mostly they are done indoors. The horses are kept in stalls, and it is up to each owner to provide food and water. They are kept in these stalls for a day or two.



Trailers show up the night before or early in th morning and horses are unloaded.



Sometimes there are tack sales too.



Higher quality horses are groomed up to show level and ridden around. The auctioneer discusses a horse's age, any bad habits, qualities, and then the bidding begins.



They go very quickly and if you're unfamiliar with industry terms it's easy to miss a statement about a bad habit or health problem. (a horse that "grabs wood" is a cribber, for example)



Lower quality horses come in and out quickly.



At the end of the day everyone packs up their trailers and heads out. Sometimes more deals occur after the sale. Dealers might make arrangements with each other.

Answer 5

They are loud, rough at times, sad at times, and dirty. The horses at my local livestock auction are kept several to a small outdoor pen with grass hay and water available. The amount of time they are kept that way differs a lot. Depending on how soon the owner drops them off and how soon the new owner takes them home. My auction will keep a horse at the house for $9 per night including hay, for no more then a few days. The majority go out of the country to slaughter, I'm afraid.



I bought my last horse at an auction, he was a 2 year old appy/arab cross, family raised the papers said. I paid $142 for him. His papers seemed correct, once I got him home he had obviously been raised as a pet, the 'in your pocket' type, and he was very desensitized already.

Answer 6

It varies GREATLY from auction house to auction house.



Most auction houses do not allow cameras, so any pictures you may find are usually taken against the rules.



I went to my first auction (RSD in Thurmont, MD) this past Friday. After hearing horror stories about auction houses like New Holland, Enumclaw, and Camelot, I was very pleasantly surprised. These horses all had their own stalls (four walls, not standing stalls) where they couldn't be bothered by other horses. They all had fresh water (even though it is the seller's responsibility to provide water for their horses, most people will refill a horse's water bucket if it's been dumped or soiled). They all had good-quality hay, and their stalls were very clean and well-bedded. I don't know how far ahead of the auction someone could bring in a horse, but it didn't look like any of them were at the facility for longer than 12 hours before the auction.



At RSD, there are very few kill buyers who ever frequent it, and there were none this past Friday, so all horses either went to private homes, a rescue, or horse broker. Most of the horses were of good quality, so even if they were bought by a broker, they're not going to be sent to slaughter, especially as prices were well above meat price. There were two Haflinger colts who went for $75 apiece, but a rescue won the bid. They were so small and underweight that a kill buyer would have lost money on them, even if he would have spent only $5 apiece. There was a big stink over someone getting kicked out of the auction this past Friday (they were there to purchase horses for a rescue, but had violated posted rules on numerous occasions, so the business owners were fully within their rights to ask them to leave), but most people don't realize that a horse going to this auction does not automatically equal the horse going to slaughter.



The horses are "run through" very quickly, and if there are a lot of horses that night, the horse being shown in the ring might not even be the horse that's being bid upon, so you really have to pay attention to what's going on. If a horse is broke and came with tack, it is ridden through (when I saw it) by riders provided by the auction house. It is walked, trotted, cantered, and galloped back and forth, and turns are usually sharp and designed to show off the horse's responsiveness.



Other auctions are not so nice. It's common for there to be a dozen or more horses crammed in a small pen for days with filthy or non-existent water, with little and/or crappy hay, on concrete with no bedding except for manure. I haven't been to New Holland yet, but depending on the time of year, a lot of horses are either bought by kill buyers (in the Fall) or by the Amish (in the Spring).

Answer 7

You can try Googling "Shipshewana Horse Auction" to get results regarding one high profile auction.



For the record, I know the owner, and the Animal's Angels blog, while accurate in its report, misses the basic, honest, REAL truth about auction situations:



Auctions are a 'waypoint' in a horse's life. If you don't like the poor condition, panting, sick, injured, horrifically treated animals at that auction, then start looking at who brought the animals to there in the first place. Unless the auction is quick enough to stop the unloading of such animals, they are stuck with a batch of poor looking horses that can't be put down without the owner's permission. Nice catch 22, huh? The owners don't care enough to provide, protect, or even actually put down their animals, but the auction house can't act without owner permission. As for water not being provided, do you seriously want to see horses drinking from a communal watering tank at a sale barn? I agree, they all should be provided with water, but the owners don't care, and there lies the problem. Don't like having horses run through? Talk to the owners who didn't provide an actual halter, or for that matter, didn't even halter break their horse before bringing it.



Auctions aren't the problem-- they are the evidence. When you go to a low level sale, you WILL see nice horses, well taken care of, treated nicely, and 'no sale' if they don't go to the right place. You also see the dregs of the horse world, dumping animals they don't want to deal with.





I personally would LOVE to see legislation that says the auction owner has the right to order euthanizing of any horse left on site without the owner present. I'd also love to see a standard fee of $5 assigned to every horse sold at the sale, strictly to help pay for the euth and disposal of any horse that arrives in that poor of condition.

Answer 8

I have been to one "cheap" horse auction. It was noise and very dirty. The horses were tied practically on top of each other, with no concern if the animals got into trouble. They were there for a few hours before the auction started. And once the auction ended, most were loaded up right away. At this particular auction most horses were ex racers, and were sold to Amish men to pull their buggies.

Answer 9

Depends on where you go, There are some really nice horses that will come through and go to nice homes. Other scruffy ponies and the "offcuts" are sent to the doggers for dirt cheap sad story, i wasnt there but apparently a potentially pregnant mare died and was dumped at the side of the road. Other places are really well kept though. It depends on where you go. If they are general stock auctions then they are probably bad, if they are stictly horses then they are usually a bit better

Answer 10

Noisy ....dirty....FUN

PENNED....separately or in groups....HIP NUMBERS applied.

Until their number's up...couple of hours

Put back in pen until picked up&hauled off.



Been to quality TB & QH sales & local....must to packers