One of the hardest things about running an animal sanctuary is seeing animals pass. It is so hard to say goodbye, even when they live way past their life expectancy, even when they had the most amazing life here with us, even when the animal himself is ready; it is never easy for us. With dogs and cats, barring any illnesses and accidents, we can pretty much assume we can have them for about fifteen years on average, but with farm animals, it is even harder as they have been set up to fail from the start.

Cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys are genetically engineered to get very big very fast so they can be slaughtered as babies. Now I’m not talking about selective breeding or hormones; I’m talking about their actual DNA. The meat industry has taken the pig, the wild turkey, the original cow, and chicken and modified their DNA to create a man-made animal that grows at an alarming, unnatural speed. When we rescue them, by the time they are full-grown they are way too big to be able to walk and have to be helped out of their bodies when they are still very young.

Our California location has about 135 animals, and they are mostly seniors and genetically engineered to not live very long. This means we have to say a lot of goodbyes, and it is very difficult to see them go. Our Sir Fancy Pants was so heavy because of genetic engineering that his tiny feet could not carry his own weight. He developed infections on his toes and needed amputations to keep him going. With missing toes on both feet however he would not be able to walk. So we consulted with Ronnie Graves who created Dudley’s prosthesis to create something for Fancy. We had a plan to create a cast of his legs and toes to send to Ronnie to create prosthetic feet for Fancy and were so excited about it. The day before we were to take him to the vet to do the casts, however, Fancy’s conditioned worsened. He was clearly in pain so we took him right away to our world-renowned avian expert, Dr. Molnar. After an extensive exam Dr. Molnar told us that making a prosthetic was a long shot to begin with, but now that his condition worsened the kindest thing we could do for Fancy was to help him out of his body so he would not suffer. We didn’t want to see him go, but let him go with broken hearts because we knew our vet was right.

Fancy was the oldest turkey we have ever had in the history of The Gentle Barn. Most turkeys live to two; a few make it to three if they are smaller in size. To make it to four is practically unheard of. Fancy lived to six! Even though we had him for much longer than his life expectancy, we know that if he was not genetically engineered and was a wild turkey he would have lived to twenty. We cannot help feeling gipped and angry at the meat industry for making these intelligent, majestic, proud beings set up to fail from day one. We can only imagine what it could be like to have Fancy strut around our barnyard, dazzling guests for twenty years! Why are they doing this to animals? We must make this madness stop! Only with a plant based diet can we vote with our dollars and say no to treating animals like this. We’ll hope you’ll join us, for Fancy.

Fancy will dance forever in our minds!