Cantrell's Farm for Wayward Animals

So in memory of our little boy, here is the story of our family. Please follow us on Instagram:


As a child I rarely had the opportunity to interact with animals. The only pet I was ever allowed to have was a parakeet when I was about 10 years old. In an indirect way, our jobs have provided us with several crash courses in animal care. My husband grew up in a very outdoorsy family a

nd has had a good deal of experience with wildlife and animals which has helped us a good bit. It all began in August of 2006, when I noticed a stray cat near Harding Place. I had very little experience with cats at the time and was a little afraid of her. In a matter of time, this friendly stray won me over and I brought her home. A year or so later I happened upon a terrible scene. A car on had ran over a mother duck and her ducklings. One of the ducklings was still alive but had a broken leg. I brought the little duckling home, after taking it to the vet and gathering medicine for it. It imprinted on me and followed me around everyday when I got home. We did our best, but unfortunately the little duck didn’t survive. We learned a lot with that incident. Knowledge that would help us a great deal later. One day my husband had the opportunity to rescue little ducklings stranded on the interstate. It seems the mother duck had tried to cross I-40 with her little ducklings following her. Unfortunately the little ducks couldn’t jump over the median barrier and the mother duck had been frightened away by the traffic My husband found the little ducks all huddled together against the median wall. He tried to give them back to the mother on the other side of the interstate but she wouldn’t get them and they were trying to get back in the road. So, he scooped them up and brought the five little fur balls home. We had learned a lot with the earlier little duckling with the broken leg and were more prepared this time. We had duckling food from the CO-OP and gravel from the pet store. We put the little ducks in the bath tub in our spare bathroom. We would feed them twice a day, and once a day fill the tub with water to wash out their mess and give them some exercise. I will never forget watching those little ducks torpedo through the water (you will find a video of them swimming that I posted on Jan 13, 2013.) They were so much fun, and let me tell you, I’ve never seen anything cuter than those little ducks. We fed them and cared for them for a few weeks until they began to grow feathers. We worked with a guy who had a huge farm with a large pond that offered to take in our little fledglings when they were ready. So, we took them to the farm and released them into the pond. To this day, those ducks still return to his pond every year. We were very happy that we were able to do something to help creatures that could not help themselves. It was a lot of work, but it was a very rewarding experience and well worth the effort. The very next year, the very same thing happened only this time, there were 12 ducklings stuck on the interstate! My husband brought them all home, but it quickly became apparent that 12 little ducks were just too much for us to handle. This is when we learned about Walden’s Puddle. We cared for and fed all 12 of those little ducklings until we could meet with an employee of Walden’s Puddle and hand over the little ducklings. We were happy that we could turn them over in such healthy condition and were glad they were going to a safe place. Ducklings � are very hard to raise in an apartment bathtub. �. Thank goodness no one ever found out. Whew �. Over the years we have taken in several rescues. I picked up an abandoned kitten, Callie, on a call one night. I found a kitten, Raj, on the side of Bell Road one day on a traffic stop. And I stopped at my vet’s office one day to pick up some medicine for Ash and they had just gotten an abandoned couple day old kitten and of course I walked through the the door lol. They knew I would take him, take care of him, and he would be a foster fail. That kitten, JJ, was very small and had to be bottle fed of course. We also had to learn how to make little kittens go to the bathroom. Not a very glamorous job, but necessary. Those three cats have been living with us for years now. They are all fixed, well fed, and very happy. We recently had several more stray animals show up at our house. An extremely friendly lab mix won us over. She’s now a permanent part of our family Gracie Lynn. Three stray cats have shown up at our door. One of them was a pregnant female, Mittens. We were able to keep her and the kittens safe, then find them all good homes. We had her fixed to avoid any more unexpected litters. She is still a very big part of our lives as she comes in and out as she wishes. A few months later, her sister, I have named Skittles, also came to visit. She was not friendly to my husband at first but came to me. She was also pregnant. We kept her and her kittens safe, found them all homes, and got her fixed. One of her kittens, Spade, ended up staying here with us. None of them ever stray very far...within hearing distance (they come when I call them) We have also made our own little cat tower with two covered bed areas right outside our porch. Don’t worry when it gets cold, they are very toasty as all the houses have heat rocks!!! (No wonder they come back)
I hope you enjoy our page, I am sure we will have more little friends in the future, it is inevitable. It is a work in progress as it was made especially for my Pug, Ash, that crossed over the Rainbow Bridge on July 2, 2012. It took me until now to actually publish the page. He was my very first pup and I treated him like a little boy. I miss him dearly, but I know he wouldn’t have wanted me to stop loving all the furry kids. Please feel free to share any of your furry family on our page. I would love to see them. Thank you all!�����������