Animal house

It is a habitat dichotomy that straddles the Potomac River. On the Virginia side is Leesburg’s Leisure World, where retirees can view the countryside from a boxy high-rise.

Across the way in Poolesville, the residents of Poplar Spring also are retirees. The Leisure World buildings can be seen from the bucolic setting at Poplar Spring, where days are spent walking the 400 acres, eating fruit and rolling in the mud.

The residents couldn’t be happier about the mud.

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Poplar Spring is a sanctuary for farm animals, one of only about a dozen such havens in the country. Terry Cummings and her husband, Dave Hoerauf, care for about 200 animals that have been abandoned, mistreated, rescued or purchased as pets on a poorly planned whim.

There are, among others, a pig that jumped off the truck while being taken for auction. Geese with crooked wings content to stay by the property’s pond. A 21-year-old blind horse. A pygmy goat rescued from an alley in Adams Morgan.

The newest resident is Hermie, a weeks-old chick saved from being a snack for snakes at a Havre de Grace, Md., reptile show. A teenager bought him before he was fed to the snakes.

“I bought the chicken for $1,” says Katie Hubbs, 16, of Olney. Katie wanted to keep the chick as a pet and bought a little carrying case for it. Alas, suburban homes and small livestock aren’t a great match, so Katie ended up finding the chick a home at Poplar Spring.

Ms. Cummings named the chick Hermie. He now sleeps in a Pack ‘n Play in Ms. Cummings’ kitchen, snuggled under a heat lamp and next to a Piglet pillow until he grows big enough to live with the other chickens.

A skeptic — or a carnivore — might ask “Why?” Why care for animals more commonly thought of as dinner? Millions of pigs and chickens, for instance, are raised for food, so is rescuing a few dozen really going to help?

It goes beyond being an animal lover, says Ms. Cummings, who has a degree in animal science from the University of Maryland and formerly worked at the National Zoo. Ms. Cummings and Mr. Hoerauf have rented the property for 20 years, dating back to when it was a traditional farm.

“We sort of made friends with the cows,” she says of those days. “We named them, gave them apples. Then one day, we were in the house, and I heard the baby calves being taken away to the slaughterhouse. It really upset me.”

Ms. Cummings soon became a vegetarian. She learned more about animals’ feelings.

Ten years ago, she got the idea for Poplar Spring, where animals are allowed to roam freely through pastures and shelters, separated only by species. Poplar Spring, a nonprofit organization, has a staff of seven, many volunteers and a $250,000 annual budget funded by donations and fundraisers.

“People do ask me, ‘What is the point?’ ” Ms. Cummings says. “There are 9 billion animals raised for food in this country each year. We can only save a few, obviously. We can save a few and educate people. We want to show them that farm animals have personalities just like dogs and cats.”

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