Eliot is a young long horn steer who was born in a kill pen at a slaughter auction. He was left in the corner of the pen for 3 days with no food or water, and the workers were just "waiting for him to die." A woman who was at the auction bought Eliot and his mom Lucy to save them from being killed, and they were brought to Poplar Spring a few years ago.
I happened to be standing right next to Eliot when he decided to get up and start moving. Not knowing where he was going, I quickly got out of the way, several times, in fact. The owner of the sanctuary said it was a good thing I did because it’s not so pleasant to have a one-ton steer step on your foot.
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The Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary is a 400-acre nonprofit refuge in Poolesville, Maryland, that offers care, rehabilitation and permanent sanctuary for neglected, abused or abandoned farm animals as well as providing a protected habitat for wildlife. They promote compassion and the humane treatment of all animals by educating the public on farm animal and wildlife issues.
A husband and wife team along with 100 volunteers and 8 staff care for more than 300 rescued farm animals, each with a name and a story of their rescue, and most of them quite friendly to humans. They’ve been in operation for 21 years, receive no public funding and survive only on donations.
For more information on the refuge, go to http://www.animalsanctuary.org
Face-off, posted earlier: