Sleepy Pig Farm Animal Sanctuary In Redding Reaches Capacity

REDDING, CT — When Tiffany Paltauf graduated from Joel Barlow High School she knew she wanted to be a dairy farmer, and thought she had a pretty good idea of what that career entailed. The summer she left high school she went up to Vermont to volunteer on a farm and begin that journey.

The course correction that followed was swift and harsh.

"It was not like I expected a dairy farm to be like," she said. "I expected to see happy cows and happy animals, and that just wasn't the case." She said the conditions were so poor that some of the animals were dead in their pens. "To my surprise, the dairy industry is a pretty cruel place, unfortunately."

So she decided to direct her efforts instead to rescuing animals from those farms, and "giving them the life that they deserve."

She came home with her first rescue, Maybelle, a baby pig gifted to her by that Vermont farmer in an act she described as "kind of random." It sure worked out well for that pig, though: Five years on, Maybelle weighs close to 700 pounds.

But back when Maybelle was "super small," she fit comfortably as a member of the family in a cottage Paltauf rented on two acres in Redding. The neo-rescuer's landlord happily accommodated Maybelle's never ending growth spurts by allowing her to build out some pens and fences on the land. Eventually, however, it became necessary for Paltauf to rent a barn in Redding, and so Sleepy Pig Farm animal sanctuary was born.

Now, five years later, Maybelle is the elder statespig in the community of 17 rescued farm animals. The 501(c)(3) non-profit takes in animals earmarked for slaughter from small farms.

Paltauf runs the sanctuary with her husband of just over a year, Joseph Bonitatebus, a general contractor. The couple met at the Ridgefield Playhouse, where she still works full-time as a bartender and social media scribe. Both are pouring what time and money they have to spare into Sleepy Pig, but they appear to have hit a wall.

There are only four things in the universe — time, space, money and love. With their recent acquisition of a baby cow, Sleepy Pig is maxed out of the first three (but still seems to have a boundless supply of the fourth). They have been fortunate to have received much support from the community, Paltauf told Patch, but that's dwindled in the Age of COVID.

The couple's goal is to buy their own farm, transform their animal rescue operation into full-time jobs and build it out and up with volunteers, a visitor program and events. Still, in the best of their projections, there is no forecast of financial return on their investments of money and time; it is a complete "labor of love."

The only long-term benefit would be for the animals. For Paltauf and Bonitatebus, that's the only business plan that matters.

"My husband and I were definitely put on this planet to do this," Paltauf said. "It's the best thing ever."

Sleepy Pig Farm is accepting donations online through their website.