SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP, Bucks County, Pa. — It takes those truly committed to buy acres of land, raise and rescue animals and create a tranquil environment for people to visit no matter the time of year.
Not far from the heart of the Lehigh Valley, a husband and wife have cultivated such as rural endeavor that grew out of COVID-19, completely transforming 15 acres and their own way of living.
For Cat and Ron Hughes, their Bucks County farm offers sanctuary to dozens of chickens and a few roosters, seven pigs, some goats, sheep, rabbits, horses, alpacas, barn cats, a camel and more.
“Probably more than half the animals found their way to us, we didn't go out looking for the animals,” Cat Hughes said Friday, walking in muck boots to introduce a trio of pigs living their best life. They were buried deep in a pile of straw, snoozing well past noon.
Even on this day, when the “Head Over Hooves Farm” was more mud pit than grass-rich pasture, it offered a pastoral escape to a world where the braying of donkeys and the neighing of horses were part of a countryside Zen — for humans and animals alike.
Pay what you can in February
The farm is open by appointment only, to keep the natural rhythm that gives life a sense of serenity.
But in February, Head Over Hooves will operate on a model that’s a little bit different. It will offer the private farm visits by donation only, instead of the normal fee.
By changing things up, Cat Hughes said she hopes it will help the farm make it through the last months of winter, which typically bring increased expenses and fewer visitors.
“We didn't really know what to base pricing off of in the beginning, because there weren’t any other farms that were doing private visits and giving the experience we do,” she said.
The cost typically would be $55 for the first two family members, and $15 for each additional family member. That means for a family of four, $85 would buy the farm — so to speak — and help the animals thrive on the socialization and enrichment the visits bring.
At the farm, foot paths cut around split rail enclosures. The farther you walk, it’s obvious the quaint animal village includes a cast of characters stimulated by human interaction.
There’s Cadbury and Klondike, two alpacas with fun and quirky personalities who are also community rockstars.
This Sunday, Feb. 11, they'll pay visits to Richboro in Northampton Township, doing multiple “alpaca grams” while dressed in their Valentine's Day attire. The 15-minute visits have proven popular, giving people the chance to feed, pet and take photos with the animals away from their normal enclosure.
Meanwhile, Apollo — a Dromedary, or one-humped camel — showed off his mischievous side when he started to nibble on a visitor’s coat.
“He grabbed my husband's zipper one time and he was zipping it up and down,” Cat Hughes said, laughing.
They have a trainer who works with Apollo a couple of times a year “just to keep him mannerly,” Hughes said, but those lessons don’t prevent the camel from doing one of his very favorite things — rolling in the mud.
Bubba's story
Out here, encompassed by nature, there’s peace for all species that call the farm home.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
In spring 2021, the Hugheses took ownership of Bubba, a pig confined to a 48-inch wire cage inside of a Philadelphia row home for the first four years of his life.
He was so obese, his belly dragged the ground when he walked. His hooves were grown out so far, they stabbed him when he walked. He was fat blind, with rolls over face that had to be surgically removed.
Today, Bubba is the farm’s smallest pig and one of its greatest success stories. But Cat Hughes still shakes her head when she thinks of the conditions in which he was living.
“It's like keeping a 3- or 4-year-old in a cage and feeding them nothing but junk food and not giving them any enrichment,” she said, making clear that Bubba — and other pigs like him — are not and will never be “teacup” or “micro” pigs.
“People got him from a breeder and the majority of pig breeders lie and tell people that they're gonna stay teeny tiny. And there's those myths of the teacup pig and the micro pig. They don't exist,” she said, emphatically.
Each week, every email or Facebook message from someone asking to visit the farm means more stories like Bubba’s can hopefully have a happy ending.
“I’m super passionate about the animals and learning about them," Cat Hughes said. "I love learning anything I can and taking in anything I can.
“I have a lot of friends that have farms and things like that, that I can bounce things off of. And especially up here in this community we have a really cool network of people that can help with whatever we need help with and answer questions for us.
"And so I just kind of learn as we go.”
To visit the farm: To make an appointment to visit Head Over Hooves, email headoverhoovesfarm@gmail.com or send them at https://www.facebook.com/headoverhoovesfarm.
