Pair Attend to Yard Full of Battered Beasts, Birds

Lynn Grizzard and Devon Finnegan rise at 5 a.m. to care for a host of barnyard animals that wouldn’t make it on Old MacDonald’s farm.

Their charges include Mime, a lame guinea hen; Daffodil Bill, a duck missing half his bill in a fight; Dancer the duck, crippled with arthritis; a Canada goose minus a wing; and Baby, a Moluccan cockatoo suffering from a disease that causes her feathers to fall off.

Once, they had a rabbit whose buck teeth had to be trimmed weekly.

The two proprietors of Grinegan Farm for the Differently-Abled Animals have spent up to $1,000 on veterinary bills for a single animal, and sometimes survive on vegetables and rice when money is short for their special pets.

“We may not have a lot of money to go to the grocery store, but the animals always eat,” said Grizzard. “They eat us out of house and home, but there are compensations. I have never known an animal to be quite as entertaining as a duck.”

Grizzard, 32, began taking disabled animals home with her when she worked as a Santa Paula veterinarian’s assistant. “It was hard to say no to anyone,” she said.

Grizzard now works at an exotic bird farm in Ojai. Finnegan is a special-education teacher.

Since the two women began taking in disabled animals three years ago, their barnyard has grown to include 2 goats, 3 dogs, 3 cats, 5 rabbits, 6 chickens, a guinea hen, 11 ducks, 2 cockateels, a cockatoo, a Canada goose, an Egyptian goose, an Amazon parrot and a blackbird dragged in by the cats.

Many of the animals came from farmers who take their unwanted animals to a Santa Paula feed store called The Mill to be adopted.

Some don’t want to foot the veterinarian bills for sick or disabled pets, the women said. “Who’s going to pay to take a sick duck to a the vet?” Grizzard said. “People don’t take ducks to the vet.”