We have lost some of our well-loved animals at Harmony Farm Sanctuary recently and it breaks our hearts. The loss of any animal is heartbreaking and the loss of those you have come to be attached to is even more difficult. It’s hard because we love and care for them every day, and it’s hard to let them go. Though at times it can feel like a surrender, a defeat, to let them go, it is anything but. Often these animals have come from cases of abuse and neglect, where they were living in conditions of suffering that can be difficult to fully comprehend. These animals fought bravely to survive, and we at Harmony Farm Sanctuary were able to give them a home where they were well-loved.
Theo, for instance, came to us severely underweight and malnourished. We were able to give him love for a number of months while he was with us. He enjoyed frequent backrubs from the staff and adored home-cooked meals from one of our volunteers Jeff, who would make him food every week, which other volunteers would then defrost and feed him. What originally began as a way to help him gain weight became a ritual of love. Any time I would see Jeff and ask about Theo and the meals, his face would light up with a smile as he would tell me about making him a mix of sweet potatoes, oats, chia seeds, lentils, and other nutritious unprocessed foods. Theo loved this mix and would often expect it, getting annoyed if it wasn’t brought out. His face, much like Jeffs, would light up about these home-cooked meals. He lived a happy life here at Harmony Farm Sanctuary, full of belly rubs and sweet words of affection from the volunteers. Towards the end of his life, Jeff and the Harmony team continued to care for him using dietary interventions, for instance switching to easier to digest foods such as watermelon when he began to develop digestive issues in his final weeks. And even towards the end, I will never forget seeing Robine and Kelly holding popsicles out for him to help raise his blood sugar when he was too weak to get up. The love I have seen at Harmony Farm Sanctuary knows no bounds of space nor time.
Phoebe was a hen who spent her years prior to HFS in the confines of a battery cage, a cruel method of housing chickens in the factory farming industry to rapidly lay eggs in extremely confined quarters that often leads to a number of health ailments. Each hen gets roughly the space of a piece of paper, in terms of floor space, and is confined to this their entire life in the industry. These chickens sometimes don’t see the light of day once in their lives. Battery hens are usually used for 2 years and then, as their egg production begins to decline, are slaughtered. In contrast, chickens not involved in the factory farming industry (i.e. at sanctuaries or in the wild) can live up to 5-10 years. We were luckily able to intervene and rescue Phoebe after she reached her 2-year mark in the factory farming industry and were able to care for her for four years. She thus lived to be 6, 3x the lifespan of her counterparts.
Phoebe came to us in a lot worse physical and mental condition. She was traumatized and hesitant, and she had very few feathers on her body due to her time in the battery cages, where the close confinement often leads chickens to pluck their own feathers or the feathers of the other chickens in the cage. Over the years that she has been here, it has been wonderful getting to see her blossom — gaining confidence, becoming social with her flock, and growing all her feathers back. She even got to be “head hen”, the highest in the hierarchy other than the rooster, and would look after the rest of her flock. Lynnee, one of our volunteers who spends a lot of time with the chickens, introduced me to Phoebe and explained the health problems she was experiencing — an infection, which was suspected to be secondary to a deeper issue. I still remember arriving one day at Harmony to find Lynnee holding Phoebe in her lap, Phoebe able to rest peacefully due to the gentler distribution of her weight with her wings outstretched. This is just another of the ways I’ve seen volunteers at Harmony love our animals.
I think what impresses me most about both Theo and Phoebe is not only the resilience and bravery required to survive, but also the bravery required to trust again. Theo had every reason and right to distrust us, given that he was in not just one but multiple separate neglect environments as he grew up. Phoebe had been greatly betrayed by humans before as well, being confined in horrendous situations in the battery cages. And yet they both decided to trust and believe in us anyway, and I feel so honored that they chose to do that.
Ultimately, it is an honor and a privilege to be able to provide a loving home for these animals that came from challenging situations. Their passing is incredibly sad, no doubt. But it is not a defeat — the animals who have come to Harmony Farm Sanctuary get to live with tons of love every day, and in a majority of cases, would not have gotten the chance to live with love otherwise and would have been in a lot worse of a life, if they even got to live. They got to live much longer in our care [our youngest pig has lived to be 3x the factory farm lifespan at 18 months and our oldest pig has lived to be 28x at 14 years old] and in much better conditions. And so, while we mourn their passing, we can also appreciate the extra life of love we were able to give them, whether that be some of the animals that pass in their old age or animals that pass due to health conditions acquired in their time of neglect like Theo and Phoebe. While this is an ending, it is “the good ending” so to speak, for these animals. The ending where they got to experience a life of love and freedom from neglect, abuse, and confinement. The life that they deserve.
Theo and Phoebe, you have been a light in many of our lives. May your light continue to shine bright, wherever you are.
Credits to Lynnee and Kelly for their insights about the lives of Phoebe and Theo, and credits to everyone at the farm for being able to provide a wonderful life for our animals.
Best,
Jamie
Comments