CINCINNATI — On the pastures of Foreverland Farm, you’ll find a potbelly pig sniffing and snorting at barn door hoping for a taste of its neighbors food, a goat prancing along just fine with three legs, a pair of proud turkeys, strutting through flocks of chicken, and you might even get a sheep to greet you from behind with a little push.
Many of them were rejected pets whose owners couldn’t care for them. Others were too small or too sickly to survive on a commercial farm. All of them found a new life at the five-acre Clermont County sanctuary.
It’s currently in the midst of a $600,000 capital campaign to find a new home and allow its animals to spread out a little more and take in more, but due to a drop in donations during the pandemic, an increasing demand for rescues and their current demanding operating costs, raising those funds has already been difficult. Then in early April, the barn caught fire.
Brittney Kane, one of the founders, officially opened the rescue with her partner Leann in 2018, but the pair had been rescuing animals their entire lives.
“We lived in the city, and we just boarded the animals at a farm in the country, so we’re like we need to purchase a property of our own in the hopes of rescuing more animals,” Kane said.
Even when it opened though, Foreverland was itching to expand. The Clermont County location could handle all the chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, ducks and even the donkey, but the horses had to stay somewhere else.
In the meantime, Kane said the farm was just taking in more and more animals.
“We really had no idea what to expect the growth that we’ve experienced over the past couple of years has been tremendous,” she said.
With the five-acre facility nearly at capacity, Kane said the rescue has had to make some difficult decisions.
“We keep getting calls about animals in need and we have to say no,” she said.
By late March, Kane said the farm had saved up about $45,000, a sizable dent in the $150,000 they were hoping for before making a down payment. Then disaster struck.
“Leann noticed there was smoke coming out the front of the barn doors,” Kane said.
An electrical failure with the heater caught the straw on fire in one of the stalls. Most of the animals were able to get out on their own but the two youngest animals: A baby goat named Moose, and a lamb named Maverick were injured.
“They sustained pretty severe burns,” Kane said.
Moose and Maverick on their way to OSU Vet Hospital. Photo by Foreverland Farms
Kane and her spouse took them to the Ohio State Veterinary Hospital, where they’ve stayed since.
“They’re both stable at the moment but we still have a long road to recovery,” she said.
Maverick in particular is facing a difficult battle. Kane said the rescue took him in back in January when he was just days old.
Tiny and malnourished, Kane said his mother rejected the lamb and he spent much of his first few weeks of life at OSU. The vets there helped him grow into an energetic 4-month-old.
Now, Kane said he’s in familiar hands.
“She was like, ‘Oh it couldn’t be Maverick who I used to walk around and bottle feed when he was a baby,’” she said. “She’s sad to see him in that condition but she saved his life one time. We’re pretty confident she can do it again.”
Moose is expected to recover, but Maverick could have a permanent disability, which would mean the farm might need a separate space for him so he wouldn’t get hurt by the rest of the herd.
As for the rest of the farm, Kane said her team is thankful the damage wasn’t worse.
“The fire department arrived on the scene pretty quickly. We got the fire contained,” she said. “There’s minimal damage that happened to the barn, which we’re thankful for.”
Kane said they’ve replaced the window, lighting fixtures and flooring of the stall, but the barn, which is concrete, is still structurally sound.
Between the repairs and the hospital bills though, the fire has proven costly to Foreverland’s expansion plans.
“It’s been hard to operate just for overall operating expense and expansion at the same time and now with this,” Kane said. “Obviously the animals that we care for now are our first priority so anything that we need to do for Moose and Maverick is what we’re going to do.”
Kane said the fire has put a few things into perspective.
Now, in addition to expanding, they’re looking at improving safety infrastructure like installing a sprinkler system and security cameras to prevent something like this from happening again.
She said the farm is also hoping to get the space and infrastructure in place to take in animals who need wheelchairs or prosthetics.
Most importantly, Kane said this hasn’t changed their campaign’s mission. She said they still need to expand. She said recent events only make that need more urgent.
To learn more about the farm or donate go here: https://www.foreverlandfarm.org/
