08/28/2026
Apparently, I have a very unusual way of “abusing and neglecting” my animals. 🤷♀️
It looks something like this:
🐾 Taking my dogs to the groomer approximately every six weeks, year-round — yes, even the livestock guardian dogs.
📋 Keeping individualized records on my animals, including vaccines, routine care, medical treatments, breeding information, and anything else important to their health.
🚻 Keeping all of my animals separated by gender, with the exception of my birds, so I don’t have accidental or unplanned breedings. Breeding is intentional and managed, not something I just allow to happen because males and females are housed together.
🐐 Raising registered Nigerian Dwarf and Pygmy goats and keeping track of their registration papers and pedigrees.
🩺 Maintaining an active VCPR with my veterinarian so I have veterinary oversight and access to medications when they are needed.
☎️ Maintaining relationships with 3–4 veterinarians at any given time because emergencies do not always happen during convenient office hours, and I never want an animal left without an option for treatment.
🚙 Keeping a vehicle with stall mats in the back AND maintaining a horse trailer so I am able to transport animals for off-site veterinary care when necessary.
💉 Keeping a completely stocked livestock medicine cabinet with medications, bandaging supplies, syringes, needles, fluids, electrolytes, supplements, thermometers, wound-care supplies, and other emergency supplies for multiple species.
📹 Using baby monitors and Ring cameras to keep an eye on my animals during kidding, whelping, lambing, or anytime I need to monitor them more closely — including overnight — so I can catch problems as quickly as possible.
⏰ Spending 8–10 hours in my barn most days, year-round, seven days a week.
🏡 Constantly expanding, repairing, improving, and upgrading fencing, shelters, pens, barns, and pastures.
🌱 Maintaining pastures by keeping them at appropriate lengths, controlling weeds, fertilizing when appropriate, and reseeding areas that need improvement.
🐴 Keeping my horses on an approximately eight-week farrier schedule.
🐐 Regularly trimming the feet of goats, sheep, alpacas, and pigs as needed.
✂️ Making sure my sheep and alpacas are sheared appropriately every year.
🌾 Maintaining a full hayloft so adequate forage is always available.
🥣 Keeping a stocked feed room with species-appropriate grain and feed rather than assuming every animal can eat the same thing.
💧 Installing a reverse-osmosis system specifically for the barn so my animals have a consistent source of clean, safe drinking water.
🧂 Providing appropriate minerals, supplements, and nutrition for each species.
⚖️ Regularly monitoring body condition, appetite, behavior, manure, mobility, coat condition, and the little changes that can signal a problem before it becomes a big one.
🪱 Monitoring for parasites and treating when appropriate rather than blindly deworming everything.
🦷 Keeping up with species-specific care such as equine dental work and other routine maintenance.
🧼 Cleaning stalls, pens, feeders, water containers, bedding areas, and shelters on an ongoing basis.
🚧 Using quarantine and biosecurity practices when animals come onto the farm or when illness is suspected.
🐕 Maintaining livestock guardian dogs and other predator protection to help keep my animals safe.
🎠 Providing enrichment and opportunities for natural behavior — including a large playground for my goats to climb, jump, explore, and interact with their environment.
🎓 Paying experienced trainers and professionals to come to my farm and teach me training, handling, and care practices I may not already know — not just so they can fix an issue for me, but so I can learn how to properly handle it myself in the future.
📚 Continuing to research, ask questions, learn, and involve veterinarians and other knowledgeable professionals when something is beyond my experience.
📝 Maintaining treatment records so I know exactly what was given, how much, when, and how the animal responded.
And this is where Facebook can be really hard.
People can be genuinely cruel. Things get taken out of context, reality gets misrepresented, and people who have never met you, never stepped foot on your farm, and know nothing about your day-to-day care can hear one version of a story and simply run with it.
Sometimes people decide what is “true” without ever asking a question, looking for context, or finding out for themselves whether what they have heard actually reflects reality.
📱 And yes, despite that, I still share my struggles publicly on Facebook.
Not because I enjoy putting the hard parts of animal ownership on display, but because I believe there is value in being transparent.
Maybe someone can learn from a mistake I made.
Maybe someone has experience I don’t and can offer a suggestion that helps me do better.
Maybe the next person dealing with the same situation can learn something from watching us work through it.
I have never claimed to know everything.
What I have always tried to do is learn more, do better, and give the animals in my care the best life and care I reasonably can.
It is truly an exhausting commitment to neglect. 😂
And I guess I look at it this way:
Maybe if everybody “abused and neglected” their animals the way I apparently do, there wouldn’t be nearly so many actual cases for the APL to investigate.
There is a very big difference between disagreeing with someone’s management choices and actual abuse or neglect.
My animals are not an occasional hobby that I remember to check on when it’s convenient.
They are quite literally what I spend the majority of my days caring for.
So if THIS is neglect…
I guess I’m doing it wrong. 🤷♀️😂
