A certain percentage of animal deaths on the way to market was even considered normal (6% for cattle and 9% for sheep on average, according to a congressional inquiry), and carcasses of dead animals were often disposed of along the tracks to be devoured by scavengers, though some were sold to glue factories or unscrupulous butchers. The suffering of animals in transit as a result of hunger, thirst, and injury were considered by many to be inherent to the shipping process, as were the inevitable loss of weight during shipment. Upon arrival at the local processing plant, livestock were either slaughtered by wholesalers and delivered fresh to nearby butcher shops for retail sale, smoked, or packed for shipment in barrels of salt. Driving cattle across the plains led to tremendous weight loss, and a number of animals were typically lost along the way. Getting food animals to market required herds to be driven distances of hundreds of miles to railheads in the Midwest, whereupon they were loaded into stock cars and transported eastward to regional processing centers. Stock cars make up part of an eastbound Santa Fe freight train in March, 1943.

What is a stock car