Greener Pasture gives animals second chance

It’s not clear if the grass is actually greener at the Greener Pasture south of Tigerton, but as long as they can live out their lives in peace, the animals that reside there don’t care one way or the other.

Caitlin and Nick Witter have spent much of the last four years flying under the radar as a farm animal rescue. On a number of occasions, they’ve opened their home to animals that were no longer wanted for a variety of reasons.

“For as long as I’ve been around, I’ve always loved animals,” Caitlin Witter said. “When I was a kid, my mom would take me to farms, and I was always so curious about what happened later. It was shocking to me that these lovable animals didn’t get to stick around forever. So by the time I had grown, I was really searching for something that we could do with this awesome space we’ve got here. I didn’t want it to just be ours — I wanted to share it.”

The first animals came to the farm about two months before the Witters’ first child was born. Witter said that a cow named Aideen was brought to the Greener Pasture from a dairy farm after it was learned that Aideen could not give milk. A pig was also rescued around the same time along with four roosters, and the two spend their days roaming around a field on the property.

“I work at the library in town, and a lady came in, and I told her about how much I love cows,” Witter said. “At that point, I had never been around cows aside from the walks I went on. She told me about this cow and asked, ‘Do you want it?’ At the time, we didn’t have any fence built and we had truly only lived here for a month at that point, but I said, ‘Yeah, we should do that.’”

All of the animals on the farm have their own stories. Almost a dozen roosters live on the farm that have come from farm operations where the hens are kept for egg production and the roosters would have been butchered. Witter noted that the roosters were antagonistic toward others of their kind at their original farms because there were hens present, but the roosters at Greener Pasture get along with each other in a pen next to the barn while the hens roam around an area originally slated to be a garden.

“Some of them come from school hatching operations, where they hatch all the chickens in the school and then the roosters don’t have a place to go,” Witter said.

In fact, the chickens are docile enough that the Witters’ children, one of them a toddler, can pick up the birds without risk of being pecked or attacked.

The Greener Pasture is also home to several sheep and goats that were either no longer wanted or were potentially up for butchering, so the Witters took them in. The farm is also home to almost a dozen cats that spend their summer days roaming around the house and the other parts of the farm.

“It was a magical feeling to give these animals, that otherwise would have had no future, a place to stay forever,” Witter said.

The Greener Pasture is unique, in Witter’s view, because it is a farm rescue in the heart of farm country. Many of the other farm rescues Witter has encountered were closer to urban areas.

“We were really excited to pull it off here where it’s just not really heard of,” she said. “At first, it was daunting, but now it doesn’t really bother me at all. I’m glad to be the misfits.”

It was a little difficult at first when their children were born, according to Witter. Lately, she said, she and her husband have found time to devote to additional animals, even though she works part-time at the Tigerton Public Library and he has a full-time job.

“One of our favorite things out there is to see the relationship some of the animals have that you wouldn’t expect,” Witter said.

Expansion is in the works. Witter said she and her husband are planning to expand fencing toward their property line on County Road J to allow more space for the current residents — and potentially even more animals. She added they hope to build another round barn similar to the small one they currently have that houses a couple of young pigs recovering from recently being neutered.

However, to do that requires additional funding. Donations here and there have helped, but the Witters are holding a fundraiser Sept. 10 to allow the public to see the animals and buy T-shirts and baked goods, along with having a corn roast.

Witter said paperwork is currently being completed to seek nonprofit status for the Greener Pasture. Doing this allows her to apply for grants to help sustain the farm and make it grow. She is hoping to achieve this by the end of the year.

“A lot of animal rights groups, like the Humane Society, put things out, and we’ll be able to apply for things and have a better situation out here for our animals,” Witter said. “There really is no safe space for creatures like these, unless somebody has a hobby farm. We’re hoping to be that landing place.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com