Jeanine Wittlinger of Gentle Acres sanctuary shares the story of Sabrina and her miracle calf, Teddy. And, seriously, it is a miracle he’s in the world.
Sabrina’s story started on a dairy farm, and it was not an easy one.
Jeanine describes Sabrina as having come from a dairy farm under really tough circumstances. After her last birth, Sabrina suffered a severe vaginal prolapse. Typically, this issue resolves itself. But her prolapse didn’t.
Upon visiting a vet, Sabrina was found to have bovine leukosis virus, which had progressed into lymphoma. She had tumours throughout her reproductive tract. For a farm running on profit margins, that kind of diagnosis is a death sentence. She was not going to be kept.
Jeanine stepped in and gave Sabrina a fighting chance.
Sabrina came to Gentle Acres sanctuary, where Jeanine arranged for her to receive a Buhner stitch, which is a medical procedure to keep her prolapse from recurring. For the first time, someone was fighting for Sabrina.
An unexpected visitor broke into the sanctuary.
A bull from a nearby beef farm broke through the fence. Not once, but twice. There’s a preventative shot that can stop pregnancy from progressing. The first time it appeared to work. However, there must have been a time when it wasn’t successful.
Nobody knew Sabrina was pregnant.
When she arrived at the sanctuary, Sabrina was very thin and very unwell. And she was quietly, unknowingly, hiding a pregnancy the whole time. This meant that the sanctuary didn’t know that preventative measures hadn’t worked.
Then, under a full moon, Teddy arrived.
Jeanine looked outside during her very first sanctuary fundraiser. 60 guests were present, and children were running around everywhere. By complete surprise, he arrived. A brand new calf, born right in the middle of it all.
Sabrina’s Buhner stitch held by some miracle.
Sabrina gave birth with the stitch still in place – the very thing keeping her together. It didn’t come undone. Teddy was not harmed by it. Against all the odds stacked against this sweet, sick, exhausted mama cow, she brought a healthy baby into the world safely.
Gentle Acres is home to 66 rescue animals, and not all of their stories have happy endings.
Jeanine is honest about the reality of running a sanctuary. She has rescued up to 100 animals, and some arrive in such poor condition that they don’t survive. Others live on with special needs, for as long as the sanctuary can provide for them. Every single one matters.
Now for the part that’s hardest to hear – and Jeanine refuses to sugarcoat.
Female dairy cows exist within a relentless cycle. Their milk, which is biologically designed to grow calves, not humans, is taken from their babies. When those cows can no longer give birth, they are no longer profitable. And when they’re no longer profitable, they are turned into products people typically eat. They’re not considered, the connection isn’t made, and they are lost in time.
And the male calves? The system has almost no use for them at all.
Male calves born into the dairy industry don’t produce milk. Many are killed at birth or within their first day of life. Others are sold to veal operations, kept in crates, unable to move, until they are slaughtered. Others are raised for cheap beef. In almost every scenario, they never know their mothers. And their mothers mourn. They wail when their babies are taken. They form deep interpersonal bonds. Family matters to them as they do to us.
That’s what makes Teddy and Sabrina so extraordinary.
They are, in Jeanine’s words, two of the very lucky few. They get to stay together. They get to know each other. They get to experience something that the vast majority of cows in the agricultural system are never allowed to have – love, connection, and family. Teddy wouldn’t be allowed to live his life and enjoy his mother’s love in the industry that Sabrina was saved from.
Teddy, in Jeanine’s own words, is “a beautiful, gorgeous little angel.”
And honestly? We’re not going to argue with that.
Gentle Acres is an animal sanctuary run by Jeanine Wittlinger, giving animals like Sabrina and Teddy the chance at a life they deserve.
