Exotic animal sale draws big crowd

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Are you in the market for a camel but needed it by this weekend? In that case, if you were anywhere but El Dorado Springs on Saturday, you are out of luck. The Heely Livestock Market of El Dorado Springs hosted an exotic animal auction June 21, and Ray Heely, co-owner, was very pleased with the turnout for this sale, both from sellers and buyers. Initially they were expecting about 350 animals to be sold, but consignments just kept coming in. In the end there was "an excess of 700," said Heely. Included in Saturday's sale were swans, ostriches, miniature donkey's, camels, eland, addax, nilgai, kangaroos, zebras, water buffalo and many others. "There are more llamas, small horses and goats in one place than I have seen. And I have been to a lot of places," said Heely. Running an exotic animal auction through a regular sale ring takes a little bit of doing. Panels had to be put up to raise the top of the ring from eight feet to over ten. In addition, plywood stockades were put around many pens, reaching to a height of 10 feet. These served a double purpose. Not only does it prevent some of the more athletic animals from trying to jump out, not being about to see all the excitement going on around them also serves to keep them quiet and calm. Besides having to rework the stockyards, managing so many different animals has been a little more of a challenge than just dealing with cows. Heely said that most of the exotic animals were fairly easy to interact with, but he does warn: "Ostriches will run over ya'." Joe Hedrick, of Nickerson, came to El Dorado Springs with a truckload of exotic animals for sale. "This is a good sale," said Hedrick. He feels that the location is ideal for an exotic animal auction because of its centralized location and the fact that Missouri is such a strong exotic animal state. Hedrick, the son of a rodeo clown, grew up around rodeo and trained animals. His first experience with unusual animals was in training a buffalo. From there he moved on to a zebra. By this time, he was wholly addicted to raising exotic animals. Right now Hedrick has more than 50 camels, 25 zebras and an estimated 100 llamas, about 30 of which he brought to Saturday's sale. Hedrick and his trained menagerie are featured petting zoos at all the state fairs in this area and is also popular for stage productions and nativities. "I try to run a first class operation," he said. Historically there has been quite a bit of fluctuation in the market for exotic animals. "When they first came in(the country) they were expensive but now about anybody can get one," said Heely. Hedrick said that the raising of exotic animals is lucrative but takes maintenance like any agriculture. Hedrick says that the trick to training exotics, or any animals, is "patience, patience, patience." "They're like kids. Some people should have 'em and some shouldn't," he said.

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