Farm-life Fridays: Angie - Some Pig!

This article is just great!

Here is an excerpt from Paw Nation's Some Pig! A Heartwarming Tail of Pig Friendship:

Susie Coston, Farm Sanctuary's national shelter director, recently wrote a heart-warming blog post titled A Reason to Get Up in the Morning that made us fall in love with the place all over again.

Coston shared the story of Angie, an elderly pig living at Farm Sanctuary's New York property who found herself alone after her pig companions died. Coston told Paw Nation that Angie had always been a happy pig who loved playing with her friends. Once she was on her own, however, Angie became depressed. She even lost interest in going out to the pasture.

"We were thinking Angie was done," Coston told Paw Nation, "She was old. She wasn't eating and she was just laying there. We were thinking we might have to put her down." Coston went on to say that pigs are very intelligent and exhibit sophisticated emotions. Like humans, they are even prone to getting ulcers when they are stressed and upset.

Farm Sanctuary staff tried introducing new friends to Angie, but she rejected each with "a bite on the rump or a run around the stall." Eventually, though, a new porcine pal would win Angie's heart. The tiny piglet, named Fiona, arrived at the sanctuary and became curious about Angie. And so, Coston told Paw Nation, with much trepidation the staff placed the piglet in the pen with the grouchy old lady.

"To tell you the truth, we were scared Angie might bite her. Fiona was so curious and just walked all over her, and Angie let her. After that they were together all the time." Even though Angie was eleven years old and arthritic, she spent every day rooting through the dirt and rolling in mud with her young buddy. Coston told Paw Nation she wasn't sure whether Angie thought Fiona was her baby, but that they always acted very tenderly towards one another...

Read the full article here
Read Susie Coston's A Reason to Get Up in the Morning here

Farm-life Fridays: 3 Lives Saved

I thought it only appropriate to start out the new year with a story of multiple lives saved! Enjoy this story from Farm Sanctuary...

Three Ducks Saved by Heroic Act of Compassion

When good Samaritan Rina Deych and her son Julian decided to go food shopping one day in September 2009, they didn’t suspect that a trip to the grocery store would turn into a dramatic rescue. But when they drove by Boro Park in their hometown of Brooklyn, New York, they saw a throng of people gathered together, and as they got closer could hardly believe their eyes: a circle of children were taunting and tormenting three little ducks lying helplessly on the ground, while the adults just stood by and watched.

Shocked by the scene they’d stumbled upon, Rina jumped out of her car and demanded that the mob stop hurting the battered and terrified young ducks. Sadly, according to Rina, only two people among the crowd acknowledged that she was right to stand up against the senseless cruelty that was occurring. As Rina and Julian scooped the ducks up into their car, one man thanked the pair before they drove off with the birds in tow.

Skipping their supermarket spree, Rina and Julian brought the ducks – now named Mishka, Fedor and Alexi – back to their house to feed and care for them. Mishka seemed to have some film over his eyes and they were all missing a few feathers, indicating they may have been packed tightly in cages with their bodies forced to rub against wire. However, we are still not quite sure where the ducks came from...

More here on Three Ducks Saved by Heroic Act of Compassion

Happy new year, friends. Wishing you a wonderful, happy, healthy 2010! Let's hope lots more lives are saved too :)

Farm-life Fridays: Boba

Here is a story from Farm Sanctuary.

Boba: A City Chicken Goes Country

With panoramic views of the Hudson River, lush flower gardens and its historic Cloisters museum, Fort Tryon Park in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan is an exquisite haven of nature amidst New York City's concrete-encrusted landscape. It is also home to such urban wildlife as squirrels, skunks, migratory birds, and ... chickens?!

At least, that's what two young sisters discovered – a hen nesting under a bush – while walking their family's pair of rescued racing greyhounds around the park in late February. The lost bird was likely an escapee from one of the city's live markets, where chickens and other “food” birds are sold from storefronts and slaughtered on the spot. Holly, 15, and Emma, 12, probably saved the indigent hen's life by carrying her home, because a severe snowstorm struck the area that night.

You can go here for the rest of the story...

Obviously, this is a "scheduled" post. I did not want to miss "Farm Friday" strictly because of a holiday. I hope everyone is having a beautiful, beautiful holiday and wonderful day.

Farm-life Fridays: Angelo

Story taken from Farm Sanctuary

Little Orphan Angelo: A Newborn Lamb’s Close Call

Animals bred for food production constantly walk a razor-thin line between life and death that leaves them vulnerable to the most devastating abuses. The precariousness of their existence is perhaps most conspicuous when pain and loss befall a newborn in his very first moments, like the little lamb named Angelo who entered the world one fateful September day. From terror and trauma, however, hope also sometimes springs — as was the case in this story of heroic compassion in the face of cruelty.

Cindy Rexhaj was grocery shopping at an Italian market in Yonkers, New York when a truck filled with sheep started unloading at the live market and slaughterhouse nearby. As she walked over to get a closer look, Ms. Rexhaj noticed that among the adult animals being herded to their doom was a tiny black lamb, underfoot and in danger of being crushed. She also saw that another baby had already been trampled to death.

Acting quickly, Ms. Rexhaj pleaded with the driver to remove the newborn from the melee and reunite him with his mother. The driver surmised that the two lambs must have been siblings born together on the truck during transport but claimed that it would be impossible to find the survivor’s mother among the flock of more than 100 sheep. However, he handed the orphaned lamb over to Ms. Rexhaj, so she took him home, where she and her mother (who grew up on a farm in Europe) temporarily became Angelo’s surrogate parents...

More here including a video and more pictures