News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
A farm animal sanctuary from Washington state is moving to Jamestown, and bringing its animals with it.
Odd Man Inn Animal Refuge Director Wendy Smith said they will be the successors to the already established Pig Preserve. Smith said they connected with The Pig Preserve over their passion for the odd man out in the farm world.
“We connected with them last year because we needed some advice on a pig of ours named Jolene who was sick,” Smith said. “When Rich and I connected over Jolene’s situation, that was when I discovered that Rich is in his 70’s and was looking for someone to physically takeover the property and the care of the animals.”
Smith said The Odd Man will serve as a safe home and adoption hub for farm animals. She said the animals come from bad situations or from people looking to surrender animals.
“Pigs have sort of become our specialty,” Number one because they’re the bottom of the barnyard hierarchy, they have very few safe options for where to go when they find themselves in a situation that they have the opportunity to be rescued. Whether it is a stray animal or animals that are 4-H survivors, where children want to find their animal a sanctuary. We work with animal control on hoarding cases and abuse and neglect cases.”
Smith said she sees the summer as a realistic opening time. She said there are a lot of options that open up when they go from having under four acres to 93 acres in Jamestown.
“Our longer term goal is to have scenarios where people can come and do like volunteer vacations at the sanctuary,” Smith said. “So they can come, they can visit the animals. We plan to construct a bunkhouse there at Odd Man Inn, where volunteers will have a place to stay. It will be like a youth hostel, it’s all hippie-dippie and cute and Kumbaya.”
Smith said the goals extend past just hosting volunteers and vacationers. She said she sees the location as an economic driver and destination point in Middle Tennessee.
“By connecting inside of the community we also hope to bring concerts, we’ll be a concert venue,” Smith said. “To bring in artists who are travelling maybe between the Nashville and Knoxville area. They would stop off in Jamestown and have a location where they can put on a free concert for the community.”
Smith said the Odd Man Inn has already been managing the property behind the scenes. She said the next steps are moving all the animals and establishing their operations at The Pig Preserve.
