a voice for the voiceless
Rocky is one of the sweetest goats. He came to us when he was found, abandoned, wandering along a highway. He has some kind of disease that will cause him to get arthritis early. It’s possible that he was abandoned on the side of the road for that reason.
Rocky
He loves attention, and if you scratch his back in just the right spot, he will wag his tail!
Patty and Paige came to us 13 months ago when they were just a few months old. They were found as strays (!) in DC. Here’s a video I found from when they first arrived!
We don’t know their stories prior to being found as strays, but there’s something about the bond that pigs form when they arrive together, they tend to stick together for much of their lives.
Last weekend the mud puddle was pretty healthy, and there were several pigs lounging in it, enjoying themselves. Patty and Paige showed up, and though there was plenty of room for them to have spread out, they chose to lay down right next to each other!
Patty and Paige
Another group that came together, and have stuck together, are Sprital and his fellow Bantams, Lindy and Mindy. They were rescued after Katrina, found in a yard of a destroyed barn. Most of the animals had died in the storm, but Sprital and a few others were alive. They were brought to Poplar Spring, and they’ve stuck together ever since.
Sprital, Lindy and Mindy
I often wondered if it was because Bantams are a miniature breed, thinking that they had a sort of sub-culture in the chicken society, but Alina – the little bantam hen who loves to be held (unlike the Katrina survivors) – has never really associated with Sprital’s group.
Nine new hens arrived last week from a hoarding situation. The woman who had been keeping them in her backyard ended up in the hospital unable to care for them any longer. They went from a small (and apparently very dirty and ill-kept) enclosure, to the sanctuary’s chicken yard with all that grass and dirt and bugs and other chickens.
One of the nine new hens
It will be interesting to see if these nine tend to stick together!
I’m really glad that the Open House is coming up in a couple months – on October 7th – so I’ll have a chance to ask Carole and Ziona, the weekday staff in the chicken yard, about where the nine new hens end up in the social structure! Hopefully by then I’ll know their names too – that gives me about 6 Saturdays of asking Terry each week!
Last weekend was the annual Montgomery County Farm Tour, which the sanctuary participates in. It’s an interesting event, because the people who show up are often there more because the sanctuary is one of several places they are visiting as part of the Farm Tour, as opposed to coming specifically to visit the sanctuary.
Visitors at the goat yard
This can make for some awkward questions or comments from the visitors, but it is also fantastic outreach potential. Most of the visitors are families, and kids are a great audience for planting seeds of compassion. Many have likely never considered veganism, or the animals.
Tilly in the foot bath
For many of these visitors, they have never had a chance to interact with pigs or cows or chickens or turkeys.
I spent the event in the chicken (and turkey, peacock, guinea, and golden pheasant) yard, as usual. Luckily this year it was less than 100 degrees, so everyone was more comfortable. Most of the chickens who are normally happy to be held, though, weren’t in the mood. And one of the ones we can always count on, Alina, was happy to be held, but was overheating quickly.
I mentioned this to Terry when I saw her while I was getting food on a break, and she suggested we bring Harrison down to the chicken yard. He lives in the “Playhouse” these days, having been ousted as Top Rooster in the main yard, and he was happily hanging out near the picnic tables up the hill from the chicken yard.
But Terry knew he’d be even happier being the poster child for chickens at the chicken yard. He loves being held – he loves it so much that he actually complains when you put him down!
Harrison being held by his biggest fan
It was a fantastic idea. Almost everyone who comes down to the chicken yard wants to hold a chicken, and having someone who loves it as much as Harrison takes all the stress out of it for those of us working the chicken area, and makes it a lot of fun for all of us. Harrison also, magically, was not getting overheated, even though he was held continuously for hours!
I stood outside the fence of the chicken yard, and people pretty much lined up to have their chance to hold him. I’d do the transfer between people so that I could make sure they were comfortable holding him, and that he was settled comfortably in their arms. Also because during transfers from person to person, he’d sometimes flap his wings – just a natural bird thing to do if he was feeling unsteady for whatever reason. He’d settle right back down, but it’s one thing for me to get flapped in the face with his wings and knowing what was going on, versus someone unused to birds…
The two young turkeys, Tilly and Cosette, came out with us too. We brought a footpath out so they could get in and cool down. It was pretty cute to see a small crowd of little kids very gently and very seriously splashing water on their chest and legs to help them cool down.
Cosette in the foot bath
One of the things I really enjoy about events is getting a chance to work with the weekday staff. (They have mostly staff during the week, and purely volunteers on the non-event weekend days.) On the regular weekend days, all the volunteers go with Terry from animal area to animal area in a group. On the weekdays, the staff each have their area(s), and so while I end up knowing more about the general population, the staff know more details about the individuals in their areas of responsibility.
There are a lot of chickens whose names I don’t know (and some of them are really hard to tell apart until you spend quite a bit of time working at it), so event days are a great chance for me to pick the brains of the staff. Carole and Ziona know not only the individual names, but they also know all the minute details about the current state of the ever-changing social structure in the chicken yard, and event days mean I spend hours in the chicken yard with them.
Carole answering a young visitor’s questions about peacocks
Carole was a teacher before she “retired” and began working at the sanctuary. It is easy to see her history as teacher during these events. She is really good at answering the many questions we get.
About 600 people came to this event, and while that doesn’t make it the biggest event, it is probably the event that has the highest percentage of people who have never considered veganism before. The exposure is everywhere – the animals themselves, the vegan hotdogs and vegan hamburgers sold for lunch, the sign at the sink by the goat yard giving information on vegan soaps…much of this exposure is the type that people can take in on their own, and it will be food for thought for them. But when they ask for the stories of the animals, they get another dose of it.
You just can’t tell the stories of these rescued animals without it being a lesson in “why vegan”.
Left to right: Amber, Emma, and Horatio. Amber and Emma were rescued from a cock-fighting breeding ring in Virginia.
All proceeds will be donated to the sanctuary.
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