My first post, welcome to the site! As mentioned in my "About" page, I want to use my photos to promote animal rights and part of that is helping sanctuaries and the photos I have just uploaded from Dean Farm Trust are the first step.
The trust began in 2007 and the sanctuary itself is based in Chepstow, Wales. It is run by Mary Frankland, an incredible woman with a tremendous amount of passion for animals and veganism. The sanctuary covers 62 acres and is home to 130 animals, consisting of pigs, turkeys, pigs, sheep, ponies, cows, goats, rabbits, chickens, ducks and donkies (figures taken from the Dean Farm Trust website).
Anyway, once we arrived, had met Mary and discussed a bit about the sanctuary and their plans, our first stop was at Turkey Terrace. Here I got to meet the local celebrity, Tina the Turkey. Tina is famous for her singing and has been featured on the BBC.
Other famous residents include Clover & Buttercup, two male calves rescued from the veal industry who appeared on Meet Your Meat and now live with ten other male calves who were rescued from the same fate.
My favourites though were Jeff and Billy. Two pigs with special needs. Billy is a Mangalica pig, rescued from horrific conditions on a free range, organic farm. Billy was born blind suffered from neglect, resulting in severe foot problems.
Then, in the same pen as Billy, you have Jeff and Link. Jeff is hard of hearing, Billy is blind and Linky was very timid and terrified of the other pigs. These three boys are so gentle and patient with each other – they all seem to know that their friends need an extra bit of help. Jeff loves people and belly rubs and won't hesitate to approach you for a back scratch either.
The whole day was a fantastic experience and I would urge all of you to visit their website and, if you can, go to one of their Open Days once they are open again. Don't forget that you can support them by purchasing prints of any of the images from them on my website too, with 50% of profits from their sales going back to the Dean Farm Trust and the other 50% goes into helping me visit more sanctuaries to continue my work.
