Most of you reading this probably know that Annie, Foxie, Jody, Missy, and Negra were used as breeders during their years in biomedical research. Each of them gave birth to multiple babies in the laboratories, all of whom were removed from their respective mothers at or shortly after birth and brought up in “nurseries” in the labs.
That’s the reason we celebrate Jody’s birthday on Mother’s Day, as we did last weekend. Jody had the most pregnancies and the greatest number of children who she did not have the opportunity to raise and love and dote on, as we suspect she would have.
Though not chimpanzees, we do, however, now have two moms with their children at the sanctuary! Moms Betsy and Honey originally lived at a dairy, where they too were probably bred multiple times. The last children that they had were able to grow up with their respective mothers at Farm Sanctuary. And grow they did!
Nutmeg, like Burrito, is the one male of his group. You don’t often see adult dairy steers because the males are basically unwanted byproducts of the dairy industry. When you do see them, they are big, and Nutmeg is no exception.
He’s about twice the size of his mom, Betsy, but he still looks to her for comfort and nurturing.
Meredith, though she’s a cow not a steer, also towers over her mom, Honey. They both seem to share an independent streak.
It’s really nice to be able to have this little family here at the sanctuary and to know these moms were able to raise their kids from birth. You can learn more about the cattle by clicking on their individual pages from the main cattle page and you can now become a Bovine Buddy too!
