Chicken’s Story

⚠️ Warning: Mentions of animal cruelty and neglect ⚠️ 

September 14th, 2016

I was 15 years old when I started actively looking for a horse. I’d volunteered at a rescue barn and had been riding for about a year, so in my mind I was ready to continue my horse experience with one of my own.

I’ll be the first to say that I really didn’t have much idea what being the full caretaker of a horse would be like. I only really helped out with whatever the barn manager told me to do, which ended up mainly being cleaning stalls, throwing hay, and changing leg wraps. I’ll admit, I was a bit naive, but what kid isn’t? Regardless, I researched absolutely everything that was needed to proactively and efficiently care for one, and, given the okay from my parents, had begun my search. 

I went and visited a few horses, but they were either out of budget, already sold, or the sellers had lied about them, so none of them panned out. However, a few months later, I saw that there was a horse auction in Sugarcreek coming up so I decided I’d skip school that Friday and go.

My father and I showed up to the auction building early in the morning so we could look around before it started. Never having been to a livestock auction before, we wandered aimlessly before finding out that we could see the animals before they went up for bidding. We went around back to see a wide variety of pens, some holding single horses and pairs and others holding what looked like nearly twenty horses. All of the neighing and squealing from the horses bumping into each other deafened the barn. Not only was it extremely noisy, but it was also constant motion. If you stood in one place too long, you ran the risk of being run over by Amish men who were constantly moving gates and running the animals around. It was absolute chaos.

Not too long into my time there, I met a nice lady who claimed to be a frequenter of the auction and warned me not to touch any horses that looked sick or had green snot coming out of their nose, as they potentially had serious transmittable diseases that could infect the other animals (of course, they were just thrown in with other animals so some were in contact with them anyways). She also pointed out how some horses had halters on and some didn’t. She told me the ones without halters were horses that had most likely been abandoned at the auction and were doomed for dog food. Any horses with halters on generally meant they had some form of training and automatically had a better chance of being sold into a home. As I looked around, I noticed that most of the horses were halter-less, some looking like they could’ve been dumped there for being old and no longer useful and others just looking skinny and ill. 

In that sad moment in the conversation, she started telling me stories of the other times she’d been there when horses were trampled to death in the pens from overcrowding. I was horrified. Starting out working in a rescue barn for neglected horses, this came as a culture shock that a facility could hold so much tragedy. Finally, the woman warned me that most horses that wind up in auctions like this one are sick or have something wrong with them, but wished me luck finding a good one regardless. 

Immediately after talking with her, I walked around a corner to the outside and witnessed a few Amish men take a horse out of one of the pens, shoot it in the head, and drag its body across the pavement to be hidden behind the auction barn. I assumed it was sick, but I didn’t know for sure. I chose to think it was suffering and they put it out of its misery, because I didn’t want to believe any alternative. I couldn’t.

Sometime after that, Chicken and her pen mate caught my eye. I waited a while, keeping my eye on them, until the perfect moment popped up when two men who were friends of their owner took them out to the parking lot. I’ll admit, I was kind of stalking them a little bit. I followed behind and began asking questions. “How old are they? Are they trained? Do they pick up all four feet?” I asked tentatively, trying to remember all of the questions the internet told me were important during my research (pro-tip: don’t trust all of the horse advice you see online). To my surprise, they answered each of my questions honestly and even let me test some of the things they were telling me. They actually urged me to get on Chicken and try riding her around the pavement, which was not something that usually happens at auctions. It might’ve been stupid on my part to get on a random auction horse by the side of the road, but hey, it worked out in the end. I thanked them and, since the auction was starting, made my way back inside the building to the auction ring.

As it began, you knew immediately who the kill buyers were. They were the first to bid on each horse, especially those that you could tell wouldn’t sell as a riding horse. Skinnier? Unhandled? Scared and bolting around the ring? They had no competition for those horses, knowing full well nobody else wanted to take the gamble to purchase them. They bought them up for pocket change like kids in a candy shop.

Chicken and her pen mate came through and, having been sent to voicemail by all of the haulers we tried to contact and not being able to get either of them home, I watched as kill buyers fought to bid her up. I thought that was it, there goes this horse that I’d already become emotionally invested in. They were too beautiful to become dog food. I almost didn’t want to watch. However, out of nowhere the men who brought her “No Sale’d” her. Not really thinking much of it, I figured they just wanted more money. I was partially relieved that she wouldn’t be going to the kill buyers, but the other part of me was a little bit disappointed. If only I’d been able to find a way to transport her home, I’d have been able to take her.

What I didn’t know was that they were making their way over to me in the seats.

They approached me, apologizing for taking her out of the sale and asking if I’d bid on her. I told them I couldn’t find a way to get her home, but that I’d have bid on her if I could’ve. To my surprise, I ended up making an outside deal with the two men, who offered not only to haul her for me, but also offered me her saddle and some other equipment for her for free. In the horse world, that is big. They did me the ultimate favor and I had nothing but a small amount of money to repay them for it. I will never forget that.

All in all, it was literally only because of the pure kindness of two men that day that Chicken is around bringing smiles to people all over the world. This is why I use my animals and platform to bring positivity to everyone I can, because I especially know just how much that ripple of kindness can change someone’s life for the better.

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”

Margaret Mead