Sarah Barwick, her husband Jason and their two kids care for more than a hundred animals at Feel Better Farm, a rescue that’s home to chickens, geese and pheasants, horses and one very loud donkey, ducks, turkeys, goats and 22 pigs – many of them former pets.
“You can train them just like you would train a dog, but at the end of the day, a pig is a pig. They like to root. That’s what their noses are made for and whether that’s rooting in the dirt or your couch, they will do it," Barwick explains. "And you know your apartment manager isn’t going to take too kindly to you having livestock on the second floor of an apartment complex.”
It costs the non-profit south of Charlottesville about $42,000 a year to keep the animals fed, which is why Barwick is grateful for donations of pumpkins from local schools and offices.
She says her pigs are especially happy to play with – and eat – those donations.
“The pigs know when fall is coming – when it’s pumpkin time. I get the stink eye every day when I don’t deliver pumpkins. The horses love them, and the birds love them too. All of our fowl like a good old cracked open pumpkin, and they will go to town on the pumpkin seeds and the innards, and there will be nothing but a shell left when they’re done.”
They’re nutritious, and they’ll keep until January. Already, Barwick says, she’s collected hundreds from area farms and from the University of Virginia which has set up three donation centers on campus.
You can donate pumpkins at the farm (https://feelbetterfarm.org), at UVA’s Student Garden at O Hill and at Baked on the James in Scottsville. Volunteers are also welcome to help feed and care for the animals.
