Hello and Welcome!
I am extremely excited to announce that all animals from this herd have found their amazing forever homes!!!
First, a little background...
It's important to understand that these animals were severely neglected before I got involved. It's hard to imagine, but this is what their 'barn' looked like the day after Christmas in 2020 after a major wind storm. This was their only shelter.
When I got involved, they had barely any shelter. And despite multiple people calling the authorities, nothing was being done to help them. I couldn't handle worrying about them constantly and decided to take action.
I recruited some family members and went into the field and put up tarps on the 'barn'. It's hard to even call it a barn when it was just one open space. But after the tarps were up, at least there was something to block the wind and help keep them warmer during the harsh winter months.
A few weeks after putting up the tarps and working with the owner to ensure the animals got fed much more regularly than they had been, I showed up to the field around 8 am on a 20 degree day and found these two wet babies at their mother's feet. And these were just the first of over 20 babies who were born without proper shelter, water, food or basic care.
Luckily, I had some old dog kennels in my backyard and with the help of my sister and niece, we were able to put this together to keep the new mom and babies safe. Over the next few months, we just kept adding kennels and whatever else we could find to keep all the babies safe. Safe from the weather, safe from being crushed by the herd and safe from predators.
This was the animals' only water source which I would come down to in the winter and use a sledge hammer and a pool skimmer to break apart the ice and then remove the ice chips to keep it from freezing back up as quickly. I also had to bring down water in gallon bottles for the moms and babies in the kennels in the barn. I would bring down 15 gallons twice a day to make sure everyone had water n
Besides proper food and shelter, they weren't getting regular veterinary care either. If you look closely at this photo, you can see that one of the male sheep (George) had a horn growing into his head. With the help of my family, we were able to capture this guy so the veterinarian could cut the horn before it blinded or killed him.
This is what George looked like after his horn was cut and he was sheared. The silver is an antiseptic spray the vet sprayed as the horn was pressing so far into his face, it had started to break skin. A special thank you to the vet and shearer who did their best to help these animals. I'm not sure if they would want their names listed, but they know who they are!
This is the large pen my family and I were able to set up in the field in order to separate the three adult male sheep. Though I offered to pay to neuter them, the previous owner refused the offer as he didn't want them neutered. Thanks to this pen, I estimate we prevented another 20 babies from being born. Thankfully, the owner didn't let them out of the pen. This photo was taken shortly befo
In the beginning, these were the only feeding troughs the animals had. Unfortunately, because they were low to the ground, the animals would often walk (and poop) in them leading to unsanitary food conditions. We were later able to get hay bags to hang in various areas to keep at least some of the food cleaner.
Once sheared in the spring of 2021, you could really see just how underfed these poor animals were. This lady was that sheep that had the first set of twins in January. During that year, she had a second set of twins as well.
This photo shows just a little bit of a devasatatng flood that covered nearly 90% of their field and was the final breaking point for the previous owner who finally allowed me to find homes for these poor animals. And this is when the real work began.
No More Homes Needed
From this point, some of the animals were adopted into homes that Farm Sanctuary found. Others went to Farm Sanctuary and then moved onto new homes from there. A few moved to a new home a friend found.
The majority of the sheep were adopted by a gentleman in upstate New York I found. Unfortunately, over time, he realized that he didn't have the time to care for them properly and asked me to take them back.
The field they lived in previously was only rented by the animals' previous owner. I tried to get the owner of the field to allow me to bring the sheep back while I looked for new homes, but the land owner would not agree to that.
Through some miracle a temporary home was located in record time and the sheep were moved there last June. They are safe and well cared for where they are by wonderful people until permanent homes were found.
The final 4 were recently adopted by the home that took the first 4 animals. Talk about a full circle story. They are now all loved and cared for the way they always should have been.
