People helping animals. Animals helping people.
Imagine for a moment you are in your car driving in the country, when you notice a dog wandering across the road. He’s not wearing any ID tags, and there aren’t any houses nearby that may know the pooch. What would you do? At this point, many folks would load the dog into their car, and bring him or her to the local animal shelter. You know that the kind folks at the shelter will take good care of him until he is adopted by a loving family. Now, what if that dog was instead a 300 pound sheep (with horns, mind you), or a 1,200 pound dairy cow? Homeless farm animals aren’t usually something people think much about.
However, each year many Wisconsin farm animals do find themselves in need of shelter due to a variety of reasons. A farmer, facing financial hardship, may move from their farm and leave behind an animal or two to fend for itself. A city person may decide that hobby farm (and rooster crowing every morning) wasn’t such a great idea. Still other farm animals become victims of abuse or neglect.
Unfortunately, most “cat and dog” animal shelters are not equipped to handle farm animals. And there just aren’t many folks eager to adopt a full-grown cow or pig. Sadly, most homeless farm animals face a very grim future. We are working to change that.
Heartland Farm Sanctuary is located in a historic 18,000 square foot barn, located on 14 acres of scenic rolling hills, forests, and prairies. There’s plenty of room to roam on this homestead! Our farm animal shelter offers rescue, care, rehabilitation services, and lifetime sanctuary to farm animals in need. When possible, we place animals in loving, permanent homes. And we serve as a resource for shelters and county agencies around the state who request our assistance with farm animal abandonment and cruelty cases.
And did you know that Heartland is one of Wisconsin’s ONLY shelters devoted exclusively to farm animals? Heartland is currently home to over 80 rescued farm animals. From pigs to chickens, we provide lifelong loving care – mucking out stalls, chopping up fresh veggies, stuffing hay racks, cleaning waters – is all part of the daily routine. And because many of our animals suffered from neglect and abuse, there are often special health care needs for many of our residents, along with regular hoof trimmings and grooming, among other care needs. We have a big chore list each day, but thanks to our dedicated shelter staff and volunteers, our animal friends are enjoying life to its fullest –and isn’t that something to cluck about?!
Heartland Farm Sanctuary is currently recruiting volunteers 16 and older who support our mission, to provide care for farm animals in need, nurture people through the human-animal bond, and foster respect and kindness toward animals and each other, to participate in our volunteer program. See below for our current opportunities.
To learn more about volunteering, please email Tracy at HeartlandFarmTracy@gmail.com
The Dane County TimeBank is a community of people who help each other by sharing their abilities, talents and experiences. When you provide a service for another TimeBankmember you earn one TimeBank Hour for each hour of help given. You can then exchange each TimeBank Hour you earn for an hour of service from anyone else in the network. The possibilities are endless, but exchanges include such things as pet care, gardening, transportation, computer help, tutoring, music and art lessons, and so much more!
We each have talents and skills that someone else values. By sharing them, we can create community one hour at a time. Since Heartland Farm Sanctuary is a member of the Dane County TimeBank, any of our volunteers who join the TimeBank can now earn hours for helping us out! Learn more about the Dane County TimeBank by visiting www.danecountytimebank.org. If you are interested in signing up to receive the benefits of Timebank, please contact TimeBank at join@danecountytimebank.org