Franklin Farm Sanctuary

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Franklin Farm Sanctuary

Animal Rescue Service
🌱 Love animals. Eat plants. To join Patreon for behind the scenes content:
www.patreon.com/Franklinfarmsanctuary

Grow together.
🐐 Rescue
🐓 Rehabilitate
🐖 Rehome
🐄 Educate
🙏 Donations welcome:
Franklin Farm Sanctuary, 12-3052-0030360-00 ❤

22/06/2025

🦆 COMMUNITY REHOME 🦆

You may remember the duck rescue we did a few months back. Thanks to you wonderful people, all the adult ducks found beautiful homes, and now the babies that were still needing extra TLC have grown up and need forever homes of their own.

It's estimated that there are 20 more ducks needing safe homes, all quite young and very sweet! If you can offer a home to 2 or more, please contact Marilyn directly on 022 365 3758. Reception is patchy at the property so text is best please 😊

Pick up is in Ngaruawahia, as soon as possible (I've been quite slack about posting this!!)

17/06/2025

🐔 COMMUNITY REHOME 🐔

If you missed this week's rescue cut off, you're in luck! Geoff is in Paeroa and needs to find a new home for his girls before he moves house. His 3 chickens are a little over 1 year old, so are still laying at a great rate, and are much loved family pets.

If you can provide a loving home for these sweet girls, please contact Geoff directly on 021651268 🙏

16/06/2025

🐮 COMMOONITY REHOME 🐮

These beautiful babies are desperately needing a new home. We know how hard it is to find pet homes for cows, but they truly are the sweetest companions! You'll need at least 3 acres of grazing for the two, unless you have a robust plan for feeding out, and decent wire fencing. One is a 5yr old pure Jersey and one is a 9mth Jersey Freisian cross. Both are friendly and halter trained and come for food. Harlow couldn't be bred again as she has troubles calving, and Coco was brought in as a paddock mate for Harlow.

They are located in Ararimu. If you can help, please contact Emma directly on 0274124436 🙏

14/06/2025

🐔 LAST CALL FOR WAIKATO HENS 🐔

Hey guys! Over the next few days I'll be doing the final processing of adoptions for the Waikato rescue next Thursday (June 19th).

If you'd like to adopt, please email me urgently at [email protected].

Include:

🐔 Your preferred pick up point - Bombay, Te Kauwhata, Thames or Cambridge
🐔 The number of hens you'd like to adopt
🐔 Your best contact number
🐔 Photos of your coop and roaming area

After this the next rescue is in October, so this is a great opportunity for those who may have been too late to apply last month 😊

10/06/2025

🐐 COMMUNITY REHOME 🐐

EDIT - the boys have found a home!!! Thank you!!! 🥳

Gary and Mango are urgently looking for a new postcode! These two boys are about 9 years old, desexed and in excellent health. They've just been wormed and have never had issues with their feet or teeth.

They're currently located in Pukekohe and looking for a home where they can live out the rest of their days together, with freedom to express their natural, charming goat-iness. Homes that tether will not be considered.

If you can help, please contact Di on 021 171 6176.

08/06/2025

🐔 CHICKEN RESCUE UPDATE 🐔

Firstly - we have a very small Waikato rescue in 2 weeks' time (June 19th). We'll be doing pickups in fewer locations and mostly on the Thursday evening for those who want chickens urgently. If you simply can't wait until October in the Waikato, please email [email protected] before the 15th to go on the list!

Secondly (minor gripe ahead) - Whenever we do a massive rescue, like the last month has seen, it becomes very clear that there's a bunch of people who don't really understand how the process works, and that's probably on me for not explaining it!

These farm rescues are a collaboration between myself and a few kind-hearted farmers who want their hens to have a happy retirement. The hens are coming off the lay for the first time and it's no longer commercially viable to keep them, so most farms would just sell them to the byproduct factory where they get turned into fertilizer and whatnot 😢 The farmers we work with sell the hens to us instead (yes - we pay for them!).

We typically have a bit of warning, so spend a month or two before the rescue advertising the coming availability of hens, vetting homes, organizing pick up points with capacity to match the demand for the area, arranging drivers to get the required number of hens to each location, and making sure each of the approximately 200 adopters have all the information required to ensure a smooth pick up and transition for the hens. Now we do have an incredible team of volunteers who do all the heavy lifting on rescue day, and I am immeasurably grateful for them!!! But all that admin, that's just little old me, frantically bashing away on my laptop before and after work.

On the day of the rescues, we go to the farm and treat all the hens for worms, lice, and mites as we load them into their waiting vehicles. They're then whisked away to the aforementioned pick up points, which have basic holding facilities to keep the hens safe and healthy until the designated pick up time (sometimes this is overnight, sometimes it's not even an hour! It very much depends on the location). Because of this, we no longer transport hens without payment as we used to get a huge number of no-shows - incredibly stressful for our fosterers and even more so when pickups are happening in a random car park!!!

These past rescues have been the worst in a long time for people deciding they didn't want hens any more after going through the whole process and simply not telling me. It took that follow up call, text and email about payment in several cases (the day before or day of the rescue) to find out, "oh yeah we decided to get babies from a breeder instead". To be incredibly frank - if you do that, those chickens will die, and it's on you. You can not wait until the rescue is hours away to pull out and expect me to have time to find a replacement home for the hens YOU promised to save. I understand as well as anyone that life happens and things change, and if it's an unforeseen emergency, that's a different story (usually we can even find a foster home until the situation has settled), but to know you're pulling out, to have been able to give me time to find another home and chosen not to.... truly nothing makes me angrier in this work than that level of carelessness.

Now, to be fair, we're talking maybe 5 would-be adopters in 500 do that - a tiny percentage! But I do think it needs to be explained how this actually works. It sometimes feels as though there's an impression that this is the full-time job of many people and that we have funding coming out our ears. In reality, it's mostly my partner and I who both also have full-time jobs in retail management and the smell of an oily rag.

All that to say - keep the applications coming, but please be patient! I will for sure reply to your email as soon as I have a chance. And for the love of all that is holy, tell me if you change your mind!!!

Is there anything I've missed? Hit me with your behind-the-scenes questions on Sanctuary life, and I'll do my best to answer 🥰

04/06/2025

🐇 ADOPT US 🐇

One AMAZING thing to come from the Waikato hen rescue, was that Rota was adopted by one of our chicken adopters!!! She came to pick up hens, saw him and fell in love 🥰🥰🥰 Now that Rota has moved to a beautiful new home, the big babies have moved into the Bunny Barn, and as much as they're loving the change of scenery, they sure could use a forever home of their own!

If you've been considering adopting bunnies, please go through a rescue! And at least consider taking this beautiful, floofy pair 😍 There is a huge amount of information to cover to ensure you're well prepared for buns, so email [email protected] if you think these guys may be your newest family members!

02/06/2025

It was such an honour to be asked to speak again at the Auckland event for National Animal Rights Day 🥹

As we stand on these steps, holding space for the trillions of animal lives lost each year, it is such a powerful moment to reflect on all that we can do as individuals to live a life in accordance with our values. So many of us consider ourselves animal lovers, but are we behaving in a way that reflects that? Do our choices protect those we claim to love?

Thank you so much to the organizers, the incredible speakers, and everyone who came to show their support ❤️ I know I'll be reflecting on your words for a good long while yet!

📷 The outrageously talented

28/05/2025

WHAT. A. FORTNIGHT.

I think the key thing here is to start with the thank you's, just in case this gets too long 😉 For those who are just tuning in, we just had two hen rescues back to back, totalling 1400 hens saved from slaughter. Rescues of this scale are just mammoth, and involve 200+ adopters, around 50 volunteers, and hundreds of hours of administration.

HUGE thanks to every single one of you - Thank you a kazillion to our incredible handlers, most of whom came to both rescues to get these hens safely and quickly treated, checked, and loaded into vehicles.
THANK YOU to our many drivers, who carted hens from Kerikeri down to Taumuranui and the Wairarapa!!!! Angels on wheels, all of you!!!!
To our wonderful community of adopters - those lives are saved by you 🥰🙏 I am so grateful for you all, and take so much joy in seeing your beautiful hen homes and hearing your success stories over in the adopters club. I may not chime in often, but know I see and appreciate every last one of you!!!
Thank you to the farmers we work with, for allowing us the opportunity to save these girls. And to every person who has liked, shared, or commented on a rescue post! Exposure makes all the difference in finding top quality homes, and I can't do that without you all!
And perhaps the biggest and mushiest thank you to my incredible partner and our kiddos, who pick up all of the slack while I'm locked into rescue mode, and keep me sane ❤️ I could not do this without you 🙏

We do have dates for our next rescues already, so if you're worried you've missed out - fear not! Roughly 3 million hens are killed every year in the egg industry here in Aotearoa, so there will always be another rescue!
Waikato, your next opportunity is Matariki weekend (20th June), and Northland you have until September 14th to get those applications in.
I'll share a little more about how this whole process works later in the week, as I do have a couple of little grumps, but I don't want to bring the vibes down here 😅

Stay tuned!!!

21/05/2025

🐔 77 NORTHLAND HENS TO GO 🐔

We are so close I can feel it!!!! These last 77 girls desperately need to have homes confirmed in the next 24 hours for us to have time to get all our ducks (or chooks) in a row for Sunday!

PLEASE, if you can adopt, email [email protected] now!!! We need:

🐔 Photos of your coop and roaming area
🐔 Your closest pick up - Whangarei / Matakana / Albany
🐔 The number of hens you can adopt
🐔 Your best contact number

If you can't adopt, please share this to every single person in Rodney!!! We can absolutely get all these girls the forever homes they deserve with one last, big push! 🙏🥰🐔

18/05/2025

🐔 140 NORTHLAND HENS TO GO 🐔

I have so much to share about the Waikato rescue this past weekend, and that is coming! But I can't stop to reflect on the awesomeness of saving 980 lives until the 430 Northland hens are all safe and sound!!!!

We only need homes for 140 more Northland hens!!! Your emails have been pouring in, so THANK YOU! I know with one more big push, we can get all these homes confirmed in the next day or 2!

To adopt just email [email protected] with:
🐔 Photos of your coop and roaming area
🐔 Your closest pick up - Kerikeri / Whangarei / Matakana / Albany
🐔 The number of hens you can adopt
🐔 Your best contact number

The hens are 18 months old and will still lay on and off for their full natural lives (just not at a commercially viable rate). They're ten per hen, and are treated for worms, lice and mites before making their way to their forever homes 🥰

I'll be waiting with baited breath for all those applications 😉🙏

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+642102209359

Website

http://franklinfarmsanctuary.co.nz/

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Our Story

In 2018 we started looking to the future, aiming to move to a lifestyle block where we dreamed of one day opening an animal sanctuary. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to move but it did start a journey of self reflection which led to the realisation that we were making a thousand excuses, and letting society dictate what was or wasn’t achievable for us!

So we stopped with the excuses and decided that if saving animals and making a difference was important, we needed to start NOW! Fast forward a year and our house looks completely different. We’ve completely switched the outside spaces up to accommodate rescue chickens, baby chicks and ducklings, rabbits and other small animals as they come in. Our weekends are now spent changing the bedding in our various animal houses/enclosures, and my days as a stay at home mum include so many more varieties of poo than they did before... and we wouldn’t have it any other way!

Our goal is still to move to more space as soon as we can afford to. There are so many more animals out there that need a safe haven, and we’d love to be able to help bobby calves in particular, being surrounded here by dairy farms. For now the biggest impact we can have is in the rescue and rehoming of ex battery/barn hens so you’ll likely see our pleas for loving forever homes pop up every so often.

If you come across a clutch of chicks or ducklings that you’re sure have been abandoned, a chicken that needs a home, or any other small furry or feathery friends in need, send us a message as soon as possible and we will do everything we can to help! If we’re not personally set up for your animal in need we will help put you in contact with the appropriate organisation. Every life matters, and working together we can make the world of difference for these innocent souls.