42000 sheep
australia | travelled in 2012 | posted on aug 01, 2012
while on mondays the cattle are always auctioned at the cattle market in wagga wagga, on thursdays it's sheep time.
and there are a lot of sheep, because this sheep market is the biggest in the world. in total, over 42,000 sheep changed their owner on the day of our visit.
the sale of the sheep takes place on another area of the market grounds. and because of the huge number of animals, the process of the auctions is also organised differently. because it is simply impossible to get so many sheep through the auction arena in one day.
the sheep are first delivered by the sellers and are sorted into lots according to breed, age and size when they are unloaded. each lot is then driven into its own fence. the sellers, buyers and the auctioneer then walk from fence to fence through the sales area, where the inspection and auction of the respective animals takes place immediately. this also rarely takes more than 30 seconds per auction.
after all auctions are completed, the animals are sorted by buyer and then loaded into the waiting trucks.
