Today is our first in a series of Valentine’s posts about each of the individuals in our care.
We are using the month of love to tell you more about everyone so they can gain more Chimpanzee Pals and Bovine Buddies. We hope to have 30 new pal or buddies by the end of the month!
I wanted to kick off the love with a post about Nutmeg, the steer we lost in March of 2024. Today would have been his 11th birthday.
As we share on his bio page, Nutmeg was born at Farm Sanctuary on February 10, 2015. His mom Betsy, along with Honey, were dairy cows purchased for a reality TV series called “Utopia”. When the show ended, after Honey’s daughter Meredith was born on set, the veterinarian and the show’s producer didn’t want to send pregnant Betsy and her new family back into the dairy industry. Seeking an alternative, and lucky for Nutmeg and his family, they found Farm Sanctuary. Like his cow companions, he came to our sanctuary on November 2, 2018 from Farm Sanctuary‘s Northern California shelter when it closed.
Nutmeg was best known for looking intimidating but being a big softie who still relied on his mom for comfort. He had a boyish charm that he shared with other sanctuary residents, which I wrote about in this blog post. Nutmeg was also known for his enviable curly red hairdo.
He liked tractors (seriously) and scratching his big, lovable head:
In the fall, he was most likely to be found picking apples right off the tree in the winter pasture. I will forever think of that particular tree as being Nutmeg’s.
What got Nutmeg out of bed in the morning was probably Betsy or Honey getting out of bed first and him dutifully following their cue.
Nutmeg was the first steer I got to know well, and I am thankful for every moment I was able to spend with him.
Nutmeg currently has two in memoriam Bovine Buddies. Thank you to them for continuing to honor his memory and his influence on the sanctuary. If you’d like to join their herd, you can become his Buddy here: https://chimpsnw.org/you-can-help/be-a-bovine-buddy/
