Written By Drew MacInnis
This summer I was lucky enough to meet a coworker named Layne with an incredible little farm at his home. Layne and his family had moved to New Hampshire a few years ago all the way from Oklahoma. Living in a more rural area of New Hampshire with an abundance of land they realized the wonderful opportunity they had to start raising animals. There was already a barn on their new property and with a preexisting love for horses and horseback riding, horses had to be the first animals in their new chapter. Instead of going out and purchasing young foals they decided to go and rescue two adult horses to give them a fresh start at life.
Horses if you didn’t already know eat a lot. Whether it be vegetables or loads and loads of hay they eat, and this is where Layne steps in. He is the oldest of all his siblings and takes on a lot of responsibility when it comes to caring for the horses. He is often the one making trips to go pick of hay bales and other resources for them.
After having the horses for a while an opportunity presented itself for the family to also rescue two ponies, one of which lost an eye. After seeing the beautiful ponies, they knew they had to have them. In order to do so they had to build a separate enclosure for them as they couldn’t be housed with the horses, which Layne had a big part in building. Once this was finished they added the two ponies to their family.
It doesn’t stop there though, as there was another addition to their growing animal family. A little farm surely wouldn’t be complete without some chickens. This too required some more building for Layne as a chicken coop needed to be made. Once this was completed it was time to add some more rescued animals into the picture. At the current moment they have 17 chickens in which they harvest the eggs from. They do not harvest the chickens for meat, as they truly love animals and just want to give them a happy life for however long they have left. It is great to see the difference Layne and his family have made in the lives of animals who at one time had no hope and no sense of belonging.