My day at Sugarshine Farm Sanctuary – my idea of heaven!

Anyone that knows me knows I’m a HUGE animal lover. I love ALL animals and I’m lucky to share my home in the UK with lots of them, which means I miss them all terribly while I’m travelling. As well as running over to every dog I see in the street, the beach, the city etc to get my animal fix I’m also trying to help out at animals sanctuaries along the way to meet new people and obviously get lots of cuddles with gorgeous animals!

During my family holiday in Byron I was on Facebook and saw a post from Sugarshine Farm Sanctuary who are based in New South Wales, they were asking for help with their new rescued calves. They had just taken in 5 new babies and needed help bottle feeding them….erm, I’m sorry, is this real life?! sign me up!!
After some quick googling I saw the farm was only 40 minutes away from our Byron apartment, I contacted them and said I’d be free that week to help them out. As it turned out my brother also wanted to come and help out too!

Sugarshine is a haven for many animals – pigs, calves, goats, sheep, hens, ducks, turkeys and pet dogs all live together in harmony – this place is a paradise! These animals have been rescued from the meat and dairy industry, taken in from previous owners or from other sanctuaries that have sadly had to shut their doors. The farm is run by Kelly, who set up the sanctuary and an incredible team of people who volunteer their time to help the farm and the animals that live there.
Now brace yourselves…cuteness overload coming your way in…3,2,1

These are the babies! They are the most adorable things I’ve ever seen. These babies are products of the dairy industry, they were taken away from their mothers at birth so that the milk for them could be used for humans…that’s right, the milk that should be bringing up these baby cows is being sold for human adults. Sounds weird right?!  Yeah, that’s because it is.

Feeding these beautiful babies was an absolute privilege and me and Jake couldn’t believe how lucky we were to be given such a job! These babies are so gentle, they nuzzle and butt your leg to try to get milk and as cute as this is it’s also heartbreaking at the same time, they should be doing this to their mother, not me.


Being vegan I know the lives that these babies would be facing, you can read my blogpost about the dairy industry here (no gruesome photos just facts that you should know) Many people don’t actually know that cows only produce milk when they are pregnant, the same as us, that milk is only for their baby, it breaks my heart to think that we deny mother and baby cows the chance to be together just so we can take her milk for ourselves, look at those babies, how anyone can mistreat them is beyond me.

We also got to cuddle some little chicks who had been bought in by a family that had rescued them and taken them to the centre. Unfortunately they weren’t able to catch the mother but there was another mother hen at the farm who took in these little babies too. Animals are great!

The farm is also home to lots of goats, who have all been rescued from various different situations. During my visit I also got to bottle feed some little babies that had recently joined the farm, they were so gorgeous! While we were raking the yard the little ones were following us around for cuddles, it was adorable!
The farm is also home to many pigs…

The smaller pigs are still being bottle fed, they are so adorable. I fell in love with one in particular who’s named Olive, she is just the sweetest little thing. She comes up and nuzzles your leg because she wants a bottle! It was the cutest thing.

I absolutely loved my day at the farm, meeting all these beautiful animals and wonderful people was great. I felt such a sense of happiness while I was there, helping to feed the babies and hear all the amazing stories of how Kelly rescues these lovely animals. Being surrounded by such compassionate people really is infectious and makes me want to do more to spread awareness for the animals who sadly are still victims of the meat and dairy industry and need us to spread the word about the suffering they face everyday. Please, if you love animals and hate to think of them suffering please, just spend 5 minutes reading some of my previous posts on animals in the meat and dairy industry – I have written posts on cows, pigs, sheep, goats and chickens (just click the word and it’ll open up the post for you) It’s not enough for us to close our eyes, shy away from photos that are hard to look at, I get it, they are awful but sadly they are the truth – the truth of what’s happening to these poor animals, they have done nothing wrong, they are innocent, they do not deserve this. If the thought of someone inflicting pain and suffering onto an animal upsets you, you shouldn’t be paying for someone else to do it for you. Please, please educate yourself so you know how the food gets to your plate, it’s the least you can do for the animals.Please follow Sugarshine on Facebook www.facebook.com/sugarshinesanctuary/ – I mean who wouldn’t want to look at cute baby animals on the internet!
Visit their website www.sugarshinefarm.com.au/ where you can donate and sponsor the animals there from as little $5 or £3 – c’mon that’s the price of your morning coffee!

For more info reagrding veganism please ask me any questions, I’d be happy to help!

You can also check out these great links

https://veganuary.com/starter-kit/ – This website has lots of info and even a free starter kit that has amazing info on how to get started on a vegan diet. Tips on how to eat out, recipes, a list of suprising UK vegan foods like Oreos, Ritz Crackers, McKipling Tarts, Bourbon Biscuits, Skittles and much more! Check it out!

You can also watch documentaries on Netflix such as
*Vegucated – this is a great, funny, light hearted documentary – a great one to start with, you can also watch it on Youtube here
*Forks Over Knives – watch the trailer here
*Cowspiracy – watch the trailer here
*Blackfish – watch the trailer here
*Earthlings – not on Netflix but you can watch here