More than ten years of Sanctuary Babe life are waiting below: the Sanctuary Babes we have loved, the challenges that shaped us, the milestones we celebrated, and countless ordinary moments that became part of the Odd Man Inn story.
Together, these photographs show our mission in motion: providing lifelong sanctuary care to vulnerable animals and educating to inspire compassionate living.
The OMI Time Machine is best enjoyed on a desktop or laptop, where the photographs have plenty of room to stretch out, but it works perfectly well on a phone or tablet, too!
Like everything we create at Odd Man Inn, this will remain a work in progress. We’ll continue adding Sanctuary Babe names, captions, rescue stories, medical milestones, lessons learned, and memories we NEVER want to lose. Our hope is to build a living archive where this history will be protected, our mission will remain visible, and our community can always return to visit the Sanctuary Babes who made it.
Strap in. We’re going back to 2015!
2015 was the year Odd Man Inn became official. The archive from those early days is delightfully unpolished: grainy phone photos and a small group of Sanctuary-Babes-to-be already running the place!
Then, on September 20, Bailey arrived! She was Odd Man Inn’s FIRST pig resident, and her arrival foreshadowed so much of what Odd Man Inn would become. On October 2, Odd Man Inn Animal Refuge was officially incorporated.
The buildings, systems, and vocabulary would evolve, our physical location would change, but the promise was already there: every resident would be seen as an individual and receive the safe, species-appropriate care they deserved.
In 2016, everything got bigger: the pigs, the mission, and—inevitably—the veterinary bills.
On July 20, Odd Man Inn officially became a 501(c)(3). Ten days later, Grace arrived as our first BIG PIG resident. She had been dismissed as no longer useful for breeding. Here, she received a name, medical care, a warm bed, and the right to live entirely for herself.
That fall, Eppah came to OMI after being found on a highway with catastrophic injuries and a life-threatening infection. Following surgery, a fierce recovery, and eventually a custom cart, she returned to the important business of being a pig.
Odd Man Inn was growing quickly, and so was our understanding of what excellent sanctuary care requires. Our housing, routines, and safety practices continued evolving around each resident’s species and individual needs.
The operation was still delightfully scrappy. The commitment was not: when an animal was out of options, OMI would show up.
In 2017, things began moving fast.
In August, OMI rescued Darla from the cull pen at a livestock auction. She arrived critically ill after years of exploitation and untreated medical problems. Although every possible intervention was attempted, we lost her three weeks later.
Darla’s time with us was heartbreakingly brief. Her impact was enormous. Her story became #ForAllTheDarlas, asking humans to recognize every dairy cow as an individual—not inventory or a commodity.
Then came Popcorn, a male Jersey calf separated from his mother and sold at auction, followed by Goose, a rescued 1,000-pound steer who eventually discovered that the house had a perfectly serviceable front door.
The community was growing, too. OMI launched Patreon, funded its first tractor, and celebrated more than 200 successful adoptions.
The mission had grown horns. And the humans were learning to keep up.
In 2018, Odd Man Inn learned that some rescue stories do not have tidy endings. You try anyway.
In February, OMI joined a multi-rescue effort to remove 21 pigs from a cruelty case. Eight came to us. Thin, frightened, and unfamiliar with clean water or a dry bed. Getting them out was only the beginning of making them feel safe.
Hooper arrived after years alone in a small dog pen. Severe obesity had left him unable to see, and fear had taught him to bite first. Ten months, 75 lost pounds, facial surgery, one patient lady pig named Priscilla, and an impressive amount of belly-rub diplomacy later, Hooper calmed down but never lost his BITE.
Then came Mr. Spock, a calf born with severe leg deformities. OMI assembled specialists, custom wheels, braces, physical therapy, and a community willing to try. We could not give Spock a long life, but his short one helped secure freedom for his mother, Violet, and opened hearts around the world.
In 2019, Odd Man Inn needed to make more room. In the barns, in the house, and in our understanding of what a good life can look like.
Melvin arrived after a dog attack and months without adequate treatment. Infection had destroyed one of his front legs and severely damaged his ears. He was rushed to Oregon State, survived an amputation, and came home three-legged, earless, and very much alive. His recovery helped shape OMI’s growing commitment to animals with complex medical needs.
That commitment became something wonderfully tangible, the Special Needs Pig Pavilion: a heated sunroom with ramps, pig doors, and private decks built directly into the people house for Melvin, Eppah, Grandma Lucy, and Ziggy.
Rescue, rehabilitation, and adoption continued at full tilt. By Foxtrot’s adoption in August, OMI had helped place roughly 275 animals in homes. SaSQUASH brought the community together, while difficult neglect cases—including the heartbreaking loss of baby Boston—reminded us that success cannot be measured only by whom we are able to save.
2019 made the promise clearer than ever: every life is worth the effort.
In 2020, the world learned to stay home. Jolene’s care required a 5,600-mile road trip.
When our nearly 700-pound matriarch suddenly began struggling to walk, finding answers exposed an enormous gap in veterinary medicine: very few facilities are equipped to diagnose and treat a pig her size. The only hospital we could find with the technology she needed was New Bolton Center in Pennsylvania.
A robotic CT scan revealed that a serious spinal infection had damaged two discs in Jolene’s neck. She spent more than a month at New Bolton receiving intensive treatment, IV antibiotics, physical support, and a frankly unreasonable selection of snacks.
Jolene came home steady on her feet, gloriously opinionated, and eventually, after more than six months, was back to living her busy pig-life again.
Through uncertainty, distance, smoke, and heartbreak, 2020 reminded us what sanctuary means: you keep showing up. You find another way. And when someone you love needs help, there is no such thing as too far.
The first third of the year was spent managing two sanctuaries. Separated by almost 3,000 miles.Â
Little Tater Tot arrived in January in Washington and promptly filled the entire sanctuary, and a sizable corner of the internet, with JOY. His life was heartbreakingly brief, but his innocence reminded us why we keep helping the next one…and the next one.
Then, on April 1, everything changed. What people thought was a big joke turned out to be the day we announced our move to Tennessee.
Odd Man Inn had agreed to assume responsibility for a sanctuary that was winding down its operations. There were more 159 pigs in need of continued sanctuary, so we did the obvious thing:
We moved in with them to help them.
First came medical triage, records, hoof and tusk care, emergency hospital visits, barn restoration, water systems, fencing, feed deliveries, and an absolutely unreasonable amount of gravel. During one four-day Sanctuary Clinic Week alone, seventy pigs received long-overdue care.
Meanwhile, our original sanctuary family still had to travel 2,700 miles from Washington. It wasn’t moving day. It was moving season: cows and trailers, a rolling Pig Party Bus, the Jolene Express, goats, sheep, dogs, and even all the equipment.
In November, Florence stepped out of the final transport van and onto Tennessee soil.
FINALLY, Odd Man Inn was home.
By the year’s end, all Tennessee residents had been examined and documented. Hooves and tusks were trimmed. Repairs continued everywhere. And the Spay Project started gaining steam…
When Odd Man Inn assumed care of the Tennessee herd, only 9 of 76 female pigs were spayed.
That left dozens of mature girls facing repeated heat cycles and an escalating risk of painful infections, uterine masses and tumors, and cancer. Female reproductive healthcare is too often discussed only in terms of babies: creating (when it comes to animal agriculture) and preventing (when it comes to rescues). But these ladies were individuals whose comfort, health, and longevity mattered all on their own.
Spaying an adult farmed pig is no small undertaking. Many of our patients weighed well over 500 pounds. Each procedure required careful loading, transport to the University of Tennessee, preoperative testing, anesthesia, surgery, hospital monitoring, another transport home, and two weeks of closely supervised recovery.
One by one, slow and steady, the Spay Project gathered momentum.
We expanded our Medical Recovery Barn. Our veterinary partners refined their procedures as they encountered case after case. Grants, donor matches, and our Patreon Medical Team helped pay the enormous bills. Each patient taught us something that improved the care of the girl waiting behind her.
The findings confirmed the urgency: approximately 80 percent of the Tennessee females treated had concerning reproductive abnormalities. Mama Miracle carried nearly 30 pounds of diseased uterine tissue and masses. Sissy had tumors, infection, bleeding, and pain. Many arrived in surgery with problems no one could see from the outside.
By December, Flower and Buttercup became spays 30 and 31…and the next patient was already in line.
This wasn’t an assembly line. It was 31 individual promises kept: to see each girl, to take her health seriously, and to give her every possible opportunity for a long, peaceful Sanctuary Babe life.
Rescue is only the beginning. The promise lasts a lifetime.
At Odd Man Inn, “Sanctuary Babe” means an individual is receiving every good thing we can provide: professional healthcare, proper nutrition, safe housing, clean water, sanitation, enrichment, consistent caregivers, meaningful choices, and the freedom to simply live.
In 2023, that promise extended to nearly two hundred residents—many elderly, disabled, chronically ill, or carrying the lasting effects of lives spent without appropriate care. Nurse visits continued every day. Hooves and tusks were trimmed. Medications and laser therapy were delivered from house to house. Beds were cleaned, buildings repaired, and routines adjusted around the needs of each individual.
The year also brought an extraordinary finish.
After thirty-one months of transports, surgeries, fundraising, pathology reports, incision checks, recovery buddies, and medical snacks, the Spay Project reached its final patient, Frances.
The biggest project since we arrived in Tennessee was complete.
By its tenth winter, Odd Man Inn was caring for just under 200 residents while also confronting a much bigger question:
How do we make sure this work continues long into the future?
Throughout 2024, the answer took a thousand different forms: safer buildings, stronger medical partnerships, more sustainable fundraising—including the first HOA Presidential Election and Annual Food Drive—and a workplace built to support the next generation of caregivers.
OMI welcomed 23 Sanctuary Babes during the year. Maple and MollyJo received essential reproductive healthcare. Three young brothers, JarJar, Obie, and Chewie, escaped a death sentence over their trapped nuggets. Janice became only the second pig EVER to receive a highly specialized elbow replacement.
Ten winters after the first sanctuary property opened its doors to vulnerable animals, Odd Man Inn was still meeting needs one individual at a time.
Odd Man Inn turned ten this year—which feels both impossible and exactly right.
That’s ten years of feeding, cleaning, hauling, trimming, medicating, fundraising, problem-solving, and falling completely in love with animals the world had treated as disposable. Ten years of building a place where vulnerable animals could finally exhale.
The anniversary year wasn’t exactly a victory lap. Lots of work was being done. Janice was relearning how to walk. Buffy was rescued from the woods. Mimi and Moonshine went from an abuse investigation to the loving arms of Sanctuary Babe life. Elderly residents needed increasingly complex care, and Abby arrived just in time to begin an intensive rehabilitation program of her own.
Through every celebration and every goodbye, the promise remained the same: lifelong care, compassion, safety, dignity, and love. Ten years after Bailey first arrived, Odd Man Inn was still standing beside the animals who started it all—and making room for those who needed us next.
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