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The Farm Sanctuary is exactly what it sounds like - a haven for barnyard animals - and it is surely one of the more blessed places on Earth. I was fortunate to spend time with National Shelter Director Susie Coston, a passionate force of dedicated energy, who gave me a tour of their New York location.
The Farm Sanctuary, now in its 24th year, has two locations. The one I visited in Watkins Glen, New York, is a gorgeous 175-acre facility that currently houses 501 animals - each one a victim of cruelty, neglect or sheer bad luck. (This is hard to imagine when you actually meet the animals; I'd never seen a goat or a sheep smile before.) The Sanctuary also has a 300-acre facility in Orland, California - just outside Chico - where the animal population is currently 328.
I first meet Susie Coston in her small office, which she gamely shares with her dogs, Nigel and Ralphie, both rescues. Felix the cat is perched above her computer (another dumpee) and a MooCoo Clock - it chimes cow sounds - reminds her of the time, of which there is never enough. I get a glimpse of her crazy world as she instructs a young employee:
"JD we need to take in this afternoon. Dewey can be picked up. The calves and the goats are not ready, they’ll be ready tomorrow or Friday and we’ll bring the two little calves, the new ones, will be coming home this afternoon too. I have to wait until this afternoon because Dewey’s bloodwork is not back yet ..”
A former teacher, Susie has clearly found her destiny at the Farm Sanctuary, where she's been working diligently for the last decade. As she takes me around the farm, explaining everybody and everything, I'm amazed that she calls every single animal by name (usually in a Southpark voice). More importantly, they clearly know her. I'll never forget the look of sheer squealing joy when two pig friends look up from their mud play and catch sight of her walking down the road with me. Man, those oinkers came running! They knew full well that belly rubs were in store.
We try to focus on the individual and the animal and the sense that it’s a living, breathing creature and it deserves just as much respect as any other, like a dog or a cat, or any other animal that you’d have in your life. And that’s the bottom line. --Susie Coston, National Shelter Director, Farm Sanctuary
Some excerpts from the interview:
CB: What's the animal breakdown at this facility?
SC: We've got over 60 cattle and just took in a rescue of six baby calves. We took in a rescue a couple weeks before of two calves that had been running loose for weeks in the snow in February, which is horrible.
We've got over 50 goats - just did a rescue: five pregnant mothers from a starvation case and one very active male (laughs) who is being neutered as we speak! The damage is done but he’s at Cornell right now.
We have 20 turkeys, couple hundred chickens of all different breeds - every breed of chicken you can think of. Fifty ducks, 30 geese, 88 sheep...
CB: This is turning into a nursery rhyme.
SC: ...and a partridge in a pear tree! And rabbits. We have 17 rabbits.
CB: All this dumping, neglect and starvation. What do you think the disconnect is for human beings?
SC: I think people have to have a disconnect in some ways. Especially like in a farming situation there has to be a disconnect and you learn that so early on that it’s very difficult to get out of that. Anytime that you put a monetary value on an animal or a person or anything, you’ve turned that into not a living being but a product. You’ve turned it in into something that, that’s not...
CB: A soul?
SC: Yeah, The soul is gone once there’s money involved and I think that’s our biggest problem. Even companion animals, like breeders. They have no issue with backyard breeding. They’re products. There’s constant raids on hoarding situations where there’s hundreds and hundreds of animals that nobody is taking care of … there’s a huge disconnect. That’s one of the reasons we’re here is to reconnect. You have no idea how many hundreds of people come in here every year and say, “I’m
