Gertie was supposed to be someone’s main course this Thanksgiving weekend. Instead, the turkey has become the shared cause of an entire community.
“She does have a lifelong disability but it did save her life in the end,” Michelle Singleton of A Home for Hooves Farm Sanctuary said.
Gertie was brought to the sanctuary in Duncan, B.C. after suffering a brutal leg injury about three weeks ago.
“She jumped up on a hayrack and fell but her leg got caught. So she hung there for the whole evening,” Said Singleton. “The leg died and had to be amputated by a veterinarian.”
Shortly after, Zoe Peled of the Vancouver Vegan Resource Centre got to meet Gertie in person and decided she needed to help.
“This is a way we can have turkey involved with Thanksgiving but keep them alive and even more so support them,” Peled said.
A dinner is being held in Vancouver Friday with part of the proceeds going to help buy Gertie a prosthetic leg.
“A Very Vegan Thanksgiving” is a collaboration including The Juice Truck, Meet, and Blue Heron Creamery. The event sold out in two days.
“There is a fellow in Victoria who makes prosthetics for humans and dogs,” Singleton explained. “Now he wants to take on the challenge of creating one for a turkey.”
So Gertie will be focusing on recovering this Thanksgiving. Thankfully, she’s proven to be much too tough to become a tasty meal.
WATCH: Vegan Thanksgiving meal fundraises for turkey’s new leg