# What is your Stock Yard like??



## 20kidsonhill (Apr 20, 2011)

An interesting subject came up on the below post about ear tags.  It brings up the subject of cull and sick animals going through the stock yards and that is the sole purpose of the stock yard.  

Where my experience has been different, our local, fairly large stockyard has lots of very healthy animals, many of them being raised and sold for the purpose of producing meat. They are being sold at an appropriate age for butchering and are in good health.  



Not to say I haven't seen the occasional, Oh mY goodness, how can someone not press charges, kind of situation coming through the stockyard, but overall. it is not a shamefull thing in our area to do business at the stockyards. 

We also see bottle babies, pet breed type animals, ect.... but I would say 80% of the goats sold are butchering age meat goats. Even the pets and bottle babies look pretty healthy, ofcourse with exceptions. 


So this got me thinking,

What are your stockyards like.  Mostly for culls? as a means of selling butchering animals?


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## sammileah (Apr 20, 2011)

I've never been to the one by me but I know several ppl that send their goat kids there and they are pet or meat quality some are show but bucks.


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## St0rmyM00n (Apr 20, 2011)

The only stock yard I know of is the Fortworth Stock yards, and from what I have seen they have always been really nice.


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## carolinagirl (Apr 20, 2011)

Back before I knew better, I used to buy goats at the stock yard.  LOTS of goats.  I had almost 100 at one time and finally brought home one with pink eye.  Quarantine?  Never heard of it.  Every have to put drops in the eyes of 100 goats every day?  NOT fun!! I have since learned better both about that stock yard (not even sure it's still open) and quarantine.  But for the most part, it was mostly culls there.  There used to be a cattle sale barn locally too.  That was a heartbreaking place to go.  I saw several downer cattle in the sale pens.  They sold really cheap.  No animal deserves to suffer that fate.  A friend of mine told me that they are even selling livestock guardian dogs at the auction now.  He said a young female great pyrenees and two 5 month old pups went through....brought a whole $25 each.  They were filthy and thin.  I wish I had been there.....I would have bought them all just to rescue them.  It's better if I just stay away from livestock auctions.


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## PattySh (Apr 20, 2011)

There are no stockyards in our area.


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## 20kidsonhill (Apr 20, 2011)

PattySh said:
			
		

> There are no stockyards in our area.


New Holland PA is probably the closest one to you or the main on for your area.  A lot of places south of PA will ship up to them, so they can process and ship to New York and more northern areas.


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## PattySh (Apr 20, 2011)

I've heard horror stories about New Holland, especially re horses.


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## Ariel301 (Apr 20, 2011)

I don't live near one now, but the one I lived by in Colorado was the place to sell anything sick/broken/useless. Blind horses, three-legged lame animals, sick animals, prolapsed cows. Horses sold for about 25 cents a pound there. It was pretty well understood that everything there was selling to be butchered.

I'm sure there are lots of good ones out there though.


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## Livinwright Farm (Apr 20, 2011)

PattySh said:
			
		

> There are no stockyards in our area.


I believe this qualifies, yes?

http://sheepgoatmarketing.info/PageLoad.cfm?page=directory/marketDetail.cfm&marketID=1484


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## Our7Wonders (Apr 20, 2011)

As far as I know we don't have one, never even heard of them until I found this board - it's not a real livestock area - mostly fruit growers here.


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## scrambledmess (Apr 20, 2011)

Here is a new one in the area that I would like to attend.  They seem to be wanting to have a nicer auction:

http://www.bltlivestock.webs.com/

I haven't been able to go, because I have worked every time they have had one.

There are some others in the area that I haven't really had the desire to attend.  They are held weekly and I believe they are more for the culling animals.  Though I have heard with the economy, people are selling almost anything to get it off their property and make some money.


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## PattySh (Apr 20, 2011)

I've never known McCraken to handle anything but cattle, I would say it's very rare for sheep or goats to go thru.


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## Livinwright Farm (Apr 20, 2011)

PattySh said:
			
		

> I've never known McCraken to handle anything but cattle, I would say it's very rare for sheep or goats to go thru.


That is a possibility... I have never dealt with a stockyard/livestock auction myself, so..?  I just did a quick search to see if there were nay in Vermont and it came up with that one.


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## aggieterpkatie (Apr 21, 2011)

There's a smallish livestock auction in DE that has some pretty bad animals. They've got everything...poultry, rabbits, hogs, ruminants.  The big ones like New Holland or Vintage are usually better than the little one in DE.  Sometimes you see some really nice looking animals in the DE auction after the DE State Fair.

But the ear tagging thing sounds like it was the standard auction ear tag....they use metal hog ring type rings with the auction tag in it and clamp it through the ears. 

Some auctions definitely leave a lot to be desired in the humane animal handling area.


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## julieq (Apr 21, 2011)

We have a stock yard in a neighboring town, but I would be too afraid to go and track back some sort of disease to our own goats.  Same reason we no longer attend county fairs or local goat shows.


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