The selling of sheep at occasions such as fairs, and markets - and most often alongside the selling of other livestock - is long established. Livestock markets, as a distinct and more formal entity, were portrayed in a review of them in 2017, by AHDB Beef and Lamb for the Livestock Auctioneers Association [LAA], as having had existence for 200 years. Livestock markets coming into being and geographical place, the review says to be ‘as much a reflection of the development of the transport networks that service them as of the areas in which livestock are produced.’
The town of Kirkby Stephen fits the above depiction. It is a market town. It has a livestock mart in the town centre now, which was formerly situated by a railway station on the edge of town. The town is amid an extensive sheep farming area. In 1353 a charter fair, St Luke’s Fair, came into existence, and at which sheep (and other livestock) were sold from pens in the town streets. The date of St Luke’s Fair became 27th October.
Regular livestock sales are held at Kirkby Stephen. A Luke Fair Sale of breeding sheep was held this year on 30th October.
Three thousand, one hundred and fifty sheep were brought to be sold at the Sale. Vehicles pulling trailers of sheep came into town, parked at the Mart site, and debouched their sheep cargoes, to be steered to allocated pens in large-scale ventilated shedding by officials. The sheep’s atypical day - which had already been un-routine from the sheep, they having had a vehicle journey and doubtless also having undergone considerable cleansing and primping before that - was well under way.
The definition of a livestock market is given by the LAA to be ‘specific locations with dedicated facilities, where buyers and sellers come together to buy or sell live animals.’ Clearly, all the participating humans in the Sale at Kirkby Stephen - the auctioneers and their staff, the sellers, the buyers - were fully cognisant of what was to happen and proceed. It was obviously thoroughly known and understood by staff of the firm of auctioneers, and by the sheep farmers, what they should be doing. Not so the sheep.
In essence, the format of the day was: this: sheep being put into their numbered pens, for viewing and to await the time in the ring; sheep going into the ring for auctioning; sheep leaving the ring for pens for collection by their new owners.
But let us consider how the day must have been and seemed for the sheep. They had made a journey by road in a trailer. They had been unloaded into an unfamiliar place and surrounding. They were met by strangers. They were placed in pens alongside others containing sheep whom they had not met before. They were pushed into a ring, surrounded by people, and with no escape; they were being moved about, to-and-fro, and in quite a tight space by method of a person, or persons, usually with a stick or shepherd’s crook; there was the continual noise of the auctioneer’s voice and of the audience around them and over-looking them from some height. They were then driven out and around to another pen. There they waited for their new owners to collect them in strange trailers to be taken to a new place. And the entire time that the sheep were in their pens, people would be moving along the walkways alongside the pens, looking at the sheep. And the flooring on which the sheep stood was hard - though there was scattered sawdust on some of the flooring.
Some comfort and help to the sheep throughout the day must been that they were in company of fellows. Sheep are prey animals, they are herd animals, they do not like to be alone. In a group they will likely be able to protect themselves the most satisfactorily against predators. Being in the ring at the Sale with all its strangeness and hubbub, and being made to move back and forth quickly, must have been frightening and of upset to the sheep. If with a lot of companions in the ring, they must have felt that they had a degree of protection from what was around and about. But the fewer the sheep in the ring, the greater must have been their fear and discomfort.
What a day, of new-ness, strangeness, anxiousness, fear, noise: for creatures who are sentient, who are prey animals, who are - understandably - nervy and wary, and whose normal routine, it should be remembered, is to be eating pasture, chewing the cud, and resting and sleeping.
The Sale was an unknown experience for the sheep. It was an activity not to their usual format and natural disposition and inclination.
At this Sale, all was done as traditionally done and as the humans there expected. But one crucial element seemed not to have been adequately considered and catered to: how the experience of the Sale was for the sheep.
Essentially how a livestock market should be was in the UK ordained in The Welfare of Animals and Markets Order 1990. Additionally in 1990 came PB0409, The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs [DEFRA] Code of Practice - The Welfare of Animals in Livestock Markets. In the Introduction of the Code it is stated, ‘A day at the market is potentially a very stressful time for any animal since it involves transport to and from a totally strange environment.’
The Sale of breeding sheep at Kirkby Stephen operated like a well-oiled-machine. The process was conducted with some speed. Sheep did not have much time or chance to ‘get their bearings’. The Code, mentioned above, portrays the fundamentals, that for an animal a livestock market represents a completely unknown environment, and their day at a livestock market is stressful for them. At the Sale, what, essentially, the sheep were displaying, and causing them much stress, were: that they did not know what was happening to them; they did not know what was to happen to them. Sheep are intelligent animals, but - in entirely unfamiliar environment, amid a process that was speedy, and without any ‘marker’ at all they could recognise, for them to sum up their circumstance - they were not able to ‘read’ and interpret their situation. They were in a situation totally unfamiliar, and of utter contrast to their normal existence.
At the Sale, the humans gave the impression that they were seeing the sheep as a commodity, their commodity. It appeared that they were not appreciating that the sheep are fellow creatures, and who have feelings and were sensitive. The humans needed to be treating the sheep with understanding, showing awareness of the sheep’s nature. They should have been atuned to the character of sheep, seeing the fear and nervousness that the sheep were experiencing during the whole course of the Sale. The humans should have noted the sheep’s wariness, realising that it derived from not knowing what was going on, and should have taken all possible action to mitigate the sheep’s apprehension and unease. Compassion to sheep should have been present and permeating the process.
If it was extrapolated from the instance of one Sale to all others, and assumed that procedures and approach are replicated, it can be imagined that a large number of sheep are having less than enough consideration of, and attention to, their perspective and feelings, at Sales.
Sheep are gentle creatures. Humans should treat them with gentleness, and understanding. Including at Sales.
4th November 2021