Please note: this is an intentionally small preview of my photos documenting this farmed animal auction, as the rest of my collection is being saved for a project that is in the works.
Perhaps no place demonstrates the commodification and objectification of nonhuman animals who are exploited for humans’ consumption quite as palpably as “livestock” auctions, where patrons actively reduce other animals to their bodies and literally bid on fellow living beings. Although small, this family-run, local auction for farmed animals is nonetheless a place of immense violence against and oppression of nonhuman people. Like industry norm, this auction house does not have qualifications or background checks for whom can purchase and bring home the marginalized nonhumans sold at the auction, nor do they have rules regarding how bidders transport the animals home from the auction nor what patrons intend to do with the scared animals once in their legal possession. Regard for the rights, wellbeing, and personhood of nonhuman animals is simply nonexistent within and inherently incompatible with speciesist systems.
A young bull stands in the auction ring as humans bid on his body.
I can't even adequately describe how intensely this young, small pig was shaking out of fear as they lay here in the back of the truck of the people who purchased them for their flesh. Mouth taped tightly shut with several layers of duct tape. Legs tied together in the fashion that is literally known as "hog tie." My heart still weeps for this individual years later; I am still haunted by them and their terror - and the other humans' complete apathy towards them.
Speciesist indoctrination starts young. Here, a child watches newborn male calves from local dairy farms being auctioned off for their flesh.
Deemed useless by the dairy industry, newborn male calves are ripped from their mothers shortly after birth. They are often sold at auction and/or sent to slaughter with their umbilical cord still attached, as seen here.
Reduced to a number, these young goats are sized up by auction-goers.