About Us

"Live your life so

that your children

 can tell their

children you not only

 stood for something

 wonderful...

you acted upon it."

Dan Zandra

Brightside Farm Sanctuary offers a permanant home to over 250 farm animals and companion animals, additionally we rescue/re home over 200 animals each year placing them in approved loving homes. Many of the animals Brightside  gives help to have been rescued from appalling cruelty others were no longer able to stay in their previous homes due to unforseen circumstances.

The thing that strikes people when they arrive at Brightside Farm Sanctuary is the harmonious way all the animals interact with each other. It may be a rescued battery hen perching on one of the rescued greyhounds, or a duck patiently standing on Fudge the pig´s back waiting for a bit of her grain.

 Brightside is the first of its kind in Tasmania and offers students and adults a unique opportunity to both meet and enjoy the company of farm animals. It might be simply giving a pig a belly rub or seeing cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and other farm animals expressing natural behaviour in natural surroundings. The animals are able to wander in the paddocks stretching their wings or rooting the ground expressing their individual personalities and interacting with each other as they would in a natural environment.

Brightside is set in the beautiful Huon Valley of Tasmania on 50 acres. There are four dams that are home to platypus and wild duck and regularly attract swan and a local pair of Wedge Tail Eagles. At night we are inundated with wildlife. The long term plan is to regenerate the native vegetation with local species and this project is underway. Brightside has rescued and re homed over 500 animals in the past 2 years as well as giving many animals a loving and safe home for life.

I am the voice of the voiceless;
Through me the dumb shall speak,
Till the deaf world´s ears be made to hear
The wrongs of the wordless weak.
.......................
And I am my brothers keeper,
And I will fight his fights;
And speak the words for beast and bird
Till the world shall set things right.

 

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 pictured right - Happy Chris

When we rescued Chris he was so emaciated the vet thought he may die, he was so weak he licked the grain we fed him like a cat lapping milk. With lots of care he pulled through and as you can see by his smile he is pretty happy now. He loves swimming in the dam and hanging out with his pig friends.

Chris had belonged to a serial animal abuser who bought animals from the saleyards and then subjected them to gross neglect.

On many occassions I saw auctioneers and the public encouraging him to bid even though he had a shocking reputation with animals and every one knew that regularly sheep, cows, pigs and horses died of starvation on his farm.

No one ever stopped him from purchasing or owning animals, countless animals died from starvation at   his property for many years.

Brightside also rescued 35 unhandled and neglected Thoroughbred horses from the same property along with sheep and calves.

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