Sweet Peeps Microsanctuary

05/18/2026

Thank you Isabelle Cnudde at Clorofil💖💖💖 The book was written primarily for human children, but by all means, please do read it to your avian children as well!🐥

05/15/2026

Friends! My latest children’s book is now available! “The Great Adventures of Blueberry and Marmalade” tells the tale of two feral Island chickens looking for true freedom, safety, and belonging. It’s a story of bravery and friendship, adventure, and the courage of compassion.

It’s designed primarily for middle grade readers but I think will appeal to animal lovers of any age!

You can get a copy directly from the publisher, or it’s currently available on Amazon ( https://a.co/d/09fpFjdv ) and will soon be available through other online retailers.

Much gratitude to .j.art for the wonderful illustrations, to Mariella Travis for designing the book, and to for bringing the book into the world!

It’s a fun, sweet, and engaging story that I hope will water the seeds of compassion in all who read it. May all beings everywhere be happy and free 🙏🏼💖

04/28/2026

Well, I hate to admit it, but I’m beginning to prepare myself for the fact that I don’t think Fernie has too much more time, and I thought I should maybe prepare you too.

She is still enjoying time outside pecking around and finding ripe berries and worms. But now I have to carry her out to her favorite spot that she was running to just a couple weeks ago. It seems dramatically harder for her to get around by the day. She falls a lot- like she falls and sits more than she stands. When she falls, the ground is close and soft and so thankfully, she doesn’t hurt herself, and she is able to get back up, most of the time. But her body just seems to be pretty broken. We’ve done all the tests that we can think to do and the only thing that we find is bad arthritis in her hips. So all there is to do is try to treat that. She’s been getting turmeric and omega-3‘s with her meals as well as anti-inflammatories and pain meds twice a day. We added in a third pain med today. And so maybe this will make a difference. I really hope so.

There are days I think maybe we could just keep going like this for a long time, and then there are days when I worry there is not much more time at all💔 For now, we’re just doing everything that we can to keep her as comfortable as possible and make sure she gets to do all of her favorite things as much as she’s able to. She gets lots of snuggles and supervised time outside, extra blueberries, and we will just do everything we can to make sure that every single day is as good as it can be, for as long as the days in balance are still good.

Fernie is a 6 1/2 year old Cornish-Cross. These are the chickens bred by the meat industry to be killed as 6 to 8 week old babies. We have other Cornishes here who are older and doing much better, so it’s not just that she’s old- but there is no denying that she has made it much longer than the unfathomable majority of her kind. Chickens like Fern are bred to be products. It’s a cruel fiction that our society just accepts as if it were true. But the truth is that Fernie is someone, not something, friend, not food.

04/25/2026

Our sweet sweet Sunshine 🌞🙏🏼❤️

04/17/2026

Happy Sanctuary Day! 40 years ago, Farm Sanctuary started a movement of compassion for all beings that just keeps growing. I’m so incredibly thankful for what they started and for all the sanctuaries around the world big and small who are carrying on this legacy. So grateful to be part of a community that revolves around the radical idea that kindness to all beings matters, and that if we can live without causing others harm, we should.

Sanctuary Day is about much more than celebrating these physical spaces we call
sanctuary, though. It’s really about how we live our lives, and recognizing that we can all live in a way that we can be a sanctuary to all other beings, and that begins with withdrawing our support from an industry that is based on causing harm and suffering to billions of animals just as sentient, just as unique, just as filled with personality and the will to live as our dogs and cats. It’s really about the Golden rule- treating all beings with empathy and compassion. So happy sanctuary day to one and all and may every day be sanctuary day! 💖🙏🏼

Also, if you watch this beautiful little video, you’ll get to see some of the peeps, including some of our beloved flock who have passed on, including our dear boys Hari and Rumi, and sweet precious Fannie 💖🪽🙏🏼

04/17/2026

Please read and sign to submit comments to the USDA urging them not to go forward with the proposal to increase the speed of the slaughter lines for chickens other animals like pigs. The faster the line, the more accidents and injuries happen both to the animals and the workers. This system is designed for maximum efficiency and profit no matter the suffering it causes. The proposal to increase the slaughter lines will make an already excruciating, violent death machine that much more brutal. Please let the USDA know that enough is enough.

Tell USDA that slaughter lines are fast enough! Submit a comment to urge them to reject proposed rules that would allow faster poultry slaughterhouse line speeds, which worsen animal suffering for billions of birds and raise the risk of injuries for slaughterhouse workers.
bit.ly/line-speed-comment

04/17/2026

Friends, slowly slowly, we are finding wonderful homes for these cats from Ohio, whose family is facing deportation. We have found really wonderful, loving homes for about half of the cats at this point, but these five kids all still need to find their home - (plus there’s a family of three we’re trying to keep together. If you are possibly interested in adopting them, please comment or message me and I will send you information on them.)

All of these cats are super loving and affectionate. We think Dominoe and Roy would probably be better in a house without other males. But all of these cats get along with other cats, with children, and with dogs.

All the boys (Dominoe, Roy, Gary) are already neutered. We will try to get Tatiana and Mapache spayed before they go to their new homes. They will also all be vaccinated before being transported.

The cats are currently located near Toledo, Ohio, but for the right home, we will figure out transport just about anywhere. If you’re interested in adopting, please message me and I will send you an application!

All of these cats have been deeply loved their whole lives. The family is heartbroken to be letting them go and we need to find them safe, loving forever homes as soon as possible. The family could be deported at any moment and the living situation is quite tenuous now- all these cats are basically being hidden… please message me if you can open your heart and your home to one or more of these cats. You will not only be saving them. You will be giving peace of mind to a very good kind family whose world is being turned upside down right now.

03/08/2026

Our sweet Jasmine, one of the “Georgia girls,” was just inducted into the Animal Heroes Hall of Fame! Jasmine was born into the factory farming system and used as a breeder for the meat industry. She is inducted to represent and raise awareness for the 75 billion chickens kept in horrific conditions and killed each year for food.

You can read her inspiring story at the link!

https://www.animalheroeshalloffame.com/hero/jasmine?

Jasmine was born into the factory farming system and used as a breeder for the meat industry. Resilient, she survived a tornado before being rescued. She is inducted to represent and raise awareness for the 75 billion chickens kept in horrific conditions and killed each year for food

02/01/2026

That’s Sunshine’s “this is the most boring day of my life!” look. The high here has barely gotten above freezing the last two days so Sunshine has been trapped inside, along with a bunch of other kids, and she is not happy about it! Thankfully, it’s going to start to warm up tomorrow and all these people in the house going stir crazy will get to go back out! They feel so mistreated!

01/30/2026

Update on Fernie. We went to a different vet today- a vet who we used to see but stopped going to her a while back for a few reasons that had nothing to do with the level of care she gave us. Well, that’s not exactly true. Part of why we stopped seeing her was because there are certain drugs that are legally prohibited in “food animals,” and some vets interpret that to mean that individuals like Fern, who will never ever be used as food, are not food animals and so are legally allowed to receive medicines that can’t be used in those animals who will actually enter the food chain. While other vets interpret the regulations to mean that any individual animal of a species who is used for food consumption can’t receive those meds—even though these are often essential life-saving meds. And this vet unfortunately is in the latter camp. But outside that limitation, this vet was always extremely kind and thorough. So we went back today. And I’m so glad we did.

The experience was such a stark contrast from what happened yesterday. Today, Fern was treated with compassion and kindness. The vet and vet tech baby talked to her, gave her treats, and I heard them say when they walked out of the room that she was “so cute.” When they took her out of the room to do x-rays and bloodwork, I trusted that she was going to be handled with care. They were able to get all the blood they needed without any discussion of anesthetizing her to do it. They also got full x-rays. They have to send the blood off so it’ll be a couple days before we get the full results. They’re doing a full CBC plus sending out a special panel for metal toxicity. X-ray showed some things in her crop that may or may not be metal. Her x-rays also showed that her hips are very arthritic, and the vet thought that the chest cavity looked abnormal as well. She wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. There was some discussion of a possible mass. So she is going to post the x-rays in one of her veterinary groups and also consult with an avian specialist at LSU.

So although I’m quite worried about Fern, I’m very happy to feel that she is now getting the care she needs and deserves. And from here on out, we will be sticking with this vet in the future— while
continuing to work to change a system that would deprive medical care to an individual because they belong to a species who we have arbitrarily labeled food and decided to wall off from our moral universe.

Grateful for everyone of you who sees individual beings for who they are, who can see past the labels and distinctions we use to justify our exploitation and oppression of other living beings. Grateful for everybody who can see Fernie for who she is, and who lives with compassion for all beings—beings of all colors and nationalities and genders and sexual orientations, of all religions and races and species… 🙏💓