February of this year the President/Founder of Faith Equine Rescue and the rescue family received some devastating news. Lane the husband of Dawn and active participant in the rescue was diagnosed with Stage 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme brain cancer. After a very vigilant and brave battle Lane won his battle as he entered into the doors of Heaven on July 2nd, 2021. It was a huge loss for our rescue family. Many have asked if we will be closing the rescue. No, Lane would not want that as he knew all the animals that we have helped and took pride in the work we did. His eyes would sparkle when he talked to people about our work. We will be downsizing some though. Focusing more on the seniors one's that no one wants that just need a place to live out their days. We have also been taking some pot belly pigs in. There are so many that need homes and just not enough homes out there. It is really heart breaking to see so many being turned loose dumped like dogs, turned over to animal shelters or abandoned when homes are sold and owners move. Please I beg you do your homework before you purchase an animal know their needs and how big they will grow to. I get so frustrated when we see adds for "micro mini pigs" there is absolutely no such animal. If you feed it, it is going to grow trust me proof is in all the abandoned pot bellies. We currently have the below permanent residents they will remain with us until the end. Keep watching our Facebook page for updates and animals that are for adoption. Please pray for the rescue, the animals and everyone involved with us. Although it has been almost 3 months since we lost Lane it still feels like yesterday.
Here is a list of our current permanent residents. This is just our permanent babies.
Bey Bey is a 25 year old Arabian Mare she has been with us for about 5 years her and her pasture mate Destiny who is about 22 years old live with an amazing foster where they are able to run free and be horses. Both came from a large scale rescue we did back in 2011 one of our first rescues. Tess is joining them this weekend.
Destiny See above
Buford is a gelding we received from Sumter county back in 2011. He was a 4 year old unhandled starving stallion. He was so fearful he would not eat or drink out of a bucket. The land they came from their water source was a nasty green pond. We don't think the herd had ever seen buckets before. It took us some time but we won his heart as he did ours. He was adopted out to an amazing Mom and was doing wonderful until unfortunately some horrible training was performed (not by Mom) and he went completely backwards. Mom was willing to keep him as a pasture pet until some life decisions had to be made and he was surrendered back to us. Due to Buford's inability to trust and the hell he has went through we decided to keep him as a permanent resident unless that absolutely 150% perfect home comes along. He needs a lot of love patience and understanding.
Angel. Angel is a mini that was born after being adopted. Her momma Willow came in pregnant from a huge hoarding case done here in Polk County. When Angel was born she weighed 13 lbs and could not stand. She spent many weeks in the hospital and rehab and is doing amazing. We have concerns about adopting her out as she does have some health issues. Her rear legs have some joint issues and she is prone to colic. The absolute perfect and I mean perfect home would have to come along. We have had so many bouts with about loosing her I just don't know that we could let her go.
Honky and Itsy are a bonded miniature donkey pair. Honky has severe COPD and his health has been declining the last few years. We are very concerned about Itsy when something does happen to Honky as they can not be out of each others sight. This pair does run with the mini's so we are hoping when the time does come that Itsy will be ok as she will have them.
Our pot bellies:
Squidward came from the Tampa Bay SPCA he is aprox. 8 years old. We have had him about 4 years now. He is the sweetest baby loves belly rubs
Oreo just came in about a month ago. This was a really sad situation he was abandoned by his owners when they moved. He was used to being an indoor pet when they through him outside and moved. The neighbors in the neighbor hood began caring for him but he kept escaping and getting onto a busy road. We were contacted to pick him up. He had not been with other pigs in who know for how long plus he just wanted back inside. When we picked him up he was so stressed out. He did nothing but oink constantly and kept jumping into my lap (or trying to at least) videos can be seen our Facebook page. He remained stressed and was having a hard time settling in. Later that day we received a female pot belly that was found wondering the streets in Tampa the folks that had her tried to find owners with no luck. So that afternoon Cookie as she is now called came to live at the rescue. We placed her with Oreo and got along right off the bat. He remained stressed every time he would see one of us but once we were out of sight he calmed back down. Oreo still loves and craves the attention but he has settled in better.
Diesel and Wrinkles came to us from a situation where the owner had died from Covid there was someone taking care of them but when they found out they were not in charge of the estate they stopped feeding and caring for them. The son lived hours away and was having to drive to care for them. Diesel was also an indoor pig thrown outside when the owner died. When we received them Diesel was underweight you could tell he was not getting the feed the other pigs were and he was low man on the totem pole. He is doing much better with us and they have both settled in wonderfully.
Peanut well Peanut what can I say he is actually a wild hog we were contacted about. The person that contacted us said the neighbor had him (apparently he had momma hanging on a cleaning rack) and didn't want him. Peanut came to us under a pound and still had his umbilical cord which was fresh and not dried at all. Peanut is the most loving and needy pig maybe because he is a tad bit spoiled who knows but he craves attention and loves to still nurse on your finger and belly rubs. Peanut would not take to a pan to eat and would not suck a bottle so to feed him I had to put a glove on allow him to nurse on my fingers and syringe milk in his mouth to eat. We did that for the first couple weeks until he finally got the hang of pan feeding. He is a pretty awesome fellow very affectionate.
TP as he is know was found wondering the roads in the trailer park (hence the name TP) down the road from our house. He was all of a pound when he came in. We thought he was a pot belly as did our vet. He had some health issues on and off we almost lost him a couple times but with wonderful vet care we didn't. Well TP is now about 200 lbs an is without a doubt not a pot belly. We still have no clue where he came from. He is living his best life getting belly rubs and he also likes to suck on her fingers its like a soothing mechanism for him. He is a playful 200 lb critter.
We still have several cats that have come in from different scenarios. Anyone looking for one please contact us.
Our biggest expense is hay as we don't have a lot of grass. We place compressed alfalfa blocks out for our residents. They have 12 hour access to it as we have to rotate in and out. We also go through obviously a lot of grain. We feed the pigs All Stock and the horses Purina Strategy GX. Shavings are a big expense also as we like to keep fresh bedding down as much as possible. During the winter we will use hay for bedding for the pigs they love to wrap up in it. We also have farrier expense although our farrier is absolutely amazing and works with us.