“There’s a woman who runs The Contented Pig Inn which is a sanctuary in Tuntable Creek. There are all these small sanctuary’s usually run by single women absolutely struggling financially and with all the physical work so I asked her to join forces and somehow buy a property together for all our animals and share the workload. That is our dream at the moment. I can never take a holiday. I have amazing people who help me but there’s only one other person who knows the animals well. It could be a slight cough or the way they look at you and you know that animal is very sick where anyone else wouldn’t notice.
I’ve had Sugarshine for four years. Six of the animals here came with me from Broken Hill. We have over 100 animals now and they are all loved. This morning we picked up a duckling whose legs were deformed. This bub can still move around. We have a special interest in animals with disabilities because we believe you can have a disability and still have a good life. This has caused people to be critical of us in the past who think animals with disabilities should be euthanised. It worries me that people think people or animals with a disability don’t have a good life or aren’t worthy of living. We have a number of animals with disabilities and they are happy, beautiful animals. Obviously we weigh up if they are in pain or if they are depressed whether they live or not because mental health is really important with animals too.
We have Precious the pig. She is a torture victim. Precious was found in someones backyard that backed onto bushland. She had been tortured, her eyeballs had been removed and she had multiple rubber bands wrapped around her snout almost severing her snout. We got the Vet out, he sedated her and removed the bands from her nose. When I first met her I sat with her for four hours trying to remove the bands while I was waiting for the Vet. Even our Vet who is tough as nails was upset when he saw Precious. She was absolutely petrified of people, so scared of us but she did end up snuggling up. She is such a loving, beautiful pig after all that she’s been through, she still loves us and still cuddles with us. She’s not scared anymore. She figured where everything is in the paddock so she knows where her water and feed troughs are. She shares her bedding area with the other pigs. Sometimes she ventures out now if we leave the gate open and she feels confident and happy. Betty the pig was born without front hooves so those two are best friends. She’s slow to get around as his Precious so they have buddied up together. They are like Sisters. Stephen the goat came from the RSPCA and he was a neglect case. I don’t think anyone would adopt him because he’s so naughty but we love him to bits. He’s constantly into everything.
We had someone who wanted to rescue a cow from a dairy so we ended up having Annie the cow come to us. She’s 11 years old and she’s given birth 10 times and of course calves get taken from their mums in the dairy industry. It depends on the dairy but they are usually removed within the first 48 hours. So she’s had every baby taken from her. The people who ran the dairy are absolutely beautiful people and they were so happy she was coming to live with us. Obviously they run a business. It’s not the people who are awful in animal agriculture, it’s the industry. Annie arrived a couple of months ago and yesterday morning she gave birth to a beautiful, gorgeous, happy, healthy, lively baby boy and she loves him so much. She licks and nuzzles him and she’s always watching him. She hides him in the long grass so no-one can take him. I don’t know if a cow can smile in happiness but she looks so happy. She trusted us after he was born. We could give him cuddles but then later in the day she hid him in the long grass and she went to get a drink. When she returned he’d moved a little bit and fallen asleep. I saw her panic, she was frantically racing around calling for him and then she looked at us with this look I can’t describe. It was a look of.. What have you done? What have you done to my baby? She found him and she ran away from us which is such a shame. She will settle eventually when she knows she can have him with her always. They love their babies just like we love our babies and the babies love their Mums so much.
Feed is always the biggest expense so we’ve been asking people, instead of donating money..I’ve always felt uncomfortable asking people for money which you have to do when you run a charity. Instead, I’ve been asking people to ring up B & B. Produce in Lismore which is a family run small business and buy a bag of Pellets or a bale of lucerne over the phone or something like that which goes directly to the animals. It costs $200 a day at the moment just for feed. Some of it comes from me, a lot of it comes from donations. That doesn’t include medications and other needs so any help is greatly appreciated. It’s increased so much because of the drought. I never say, I run Sugarshine, I say, we run Sugarshine because I can’t do it without all the people who support us.
The other thing I would love, love, love is if someone could come and help us set up a veggie patch. I need a pumpkin patch and veggies for feed. We need physical help and seedlings to do this. That would be amazing. We have fencing here.
It’s been a very special experience being a part of it. What I would like to do is somehow work more shifts at the hospital and make more money. I still have my mortgage. I buy 2 minute noodles for me (laughs). My dream would be to go in partnership with my friend and buy a property together in the Lismore area. We love Lismore. It’s an amazing community. I’ve been so welcomed and I just love the people here. Oh, and I’m looking for a boyfriend who likes pigs……………….Mmm …and goats and sheep and cows.”
(OK HOL This is why I do this page because you guys know how to help each other out. Please do whatever little bit you can for Sugarshine. If you go out there to help you will be rewarded with laughter and so much love from all the animals. Be prepared to be nuzzled, sat on, licked, kissed, leant on and amused. I didn’t want to leave.) xx Denise