The Herald News also did a fantastic piece on all the animals we took in from the 2016 Westport MA massive cruelty case. Read the original article here, or see the full content below, by Deborah Allard.
An alpine goat named "Sadie" hopes to find salt on the photographer's lens.
Herald News Photo | Jack Foley
TIVERTON - A pair of alpine goats, Maggie and Sadie, were eager to greet their visitors, raising their heads over the fence and all too happy to have a sniff of a human hand or face.
"Happy" is the operative word here.
They are just two of more than a dozen animals living the good life these days at West Place Animal Sanctuary on Main Road after being rescued from deplorable conditions at the tenant farm in Westport in July.
"They came to the right place," said West Place owner Wendy Taylor. "They're fat and happy."
Among Taylor's new menagerie are two goats, two lambs, four peacocks, five partridges, three pheasants, a quail, some ducks, and 39 fish - all from the Westport tenant farm. The fish were found in a man-made pool, housed in a door-less, wooden structure on site.
They've joined her other residents, including alpacas, turkeys, horses, swans, geese and even a pony.
Nearby farm owner Cheryl DeDucca is caring for three goats from Westport, where they're sharing space with her alpacas at Lazy Creek Farm.
The animals will live permanently on the farms.
The women, with the help of their friend Jeanne Padilla, owner of the former Waterstreet Cafe, are hosting a fundraiser to benefit the animals on Sunday, Nov. 13, at Boondocks, 46 Water St., Fall River, from 2 to 9 p.m.
"I wanted to help," Padilla said. "We needed a fundraiser. Music heals."
Taylor said when she and DeDucca, along with Pamela Holmes, an ASPCA responder, arrived at the Westport farm to help transport the abused and neglected animals, it was a sickening sight, and one they couldn't quite grasp so early on.
"How can we describe how horrible that was?," Holmes questioned.
They described it as a sort of "shanty town" of 21 lots made up of decrepit buildings. There was barbed wire, toxic waste, broken down vehicles, old washing machines and rusting equipment on the site.
But the most horrifying sight was the sick and near dead animals, and the dead and decaying carcasses. And the rats, everywhere, some as large as cats.
"When we were trying to get the animals into trailers, the rats were under our feet," Taylor said. "No one knew at the time what the diseases were. It was just more important to get the animals out."
On the first day, some of the animals were euthanized because they were so far gone from starvation and wounds, the women said.
"You put your emotions on the back burner," Taylor said. "You put your blinders on and get on with it," said Holmes.