Farm Animal Refuge and Roberta Russo (vegan): Loving “Grandma” to Rescued Animal-People, Part 1 of 2

“Farm Animal Refuge is an agricultural animal rescue located in Campo, California.” We had the privilege of speaking with Roberta Russo (vegan), Jordan’s mother, an animal-people lover and a dedicated volunteer at Farm Animal Refuge. “To show people: please look at these beautiful animals, beautiful souls, just like we love the pets in our homes. They’re no different; they’re just bigger.” “A typical day here starts at about five in the morning, and it goes until about 10 o’clock at night in the summer when the days are longer. So we start really early. All the animal-residents are all locked in at sunset and then let out at sunrise.” “We have 90 residents here, and that includes turkeys, chickens. We have six cows, eight sheep, 34 goats, 31 pigs, but that doesn’t include four big pigs. The pot belly pigs sometimes will rub their heads on the squirrels’ tails so everybody gets along.”

“We have turkeys that came from a slaughterhouse right before Thanksgiving. Vegan activists went in and said, we will give vegan meals to your employees if you release turkeys. So, in an act of compassion, the slaughterhouse released 100 turkeys right before Thanksgiving. They’re just bred genetically to have a very heavy breast. So we do a lot of treatments to keep them healthy. We also have Rue Rue. She’s a big pig. She jumped off a truck on her way to slaughter. And then we have Gracie, a Holstein cow from the dairy industry. She was born with an umbilical hernia, so she was deemed useless.” “And I feel like their stories prove how resilient they are and how they can overcome the horrors that they went through, and yet, on the other side, come out to live life joyfully and be happy and make new friends.”