Richmond’s Stardust Animal Sanctuary preps its menagerie for cold blast

Moving the fowl came first: getting chickens and a rooster, a turkey, ducks and geese into the basement before extreme cold sets in.

With an arctic blast expected in McHenry County and northern Illinois beginning Sunday, Laurie Kay and Leslie Ann SanFilippo started the process they follow every winter when the weather turns particularly cold.

“We are in the barn, transferring animals. We started with bringing the ducks in. They tend to get pneumonia” when it gets too icy outdoors, SanFilippo said.

She and Kay have operated the Stardust Animal Sanctuary since 2004, moving to their current location outside Richmond in 2017. Before that, they rented various barns.

“We kept on fixing (the barn) up and then the next one and the next,” SanFilippo said of those early years.

Stardust is not a rescue, Kay explained. They do not have adoption events or advertise for homes, although they do place animals with foster families.

Everything “is covered with Persian rugs that people have donated – or hay bales.”

—  Laurie Kay, Stardust Animal Sanctuary co-founder

Instead, they care for animals with medical and emotional needs “that no rescue can pick up,” Kay said.

There is a goose with one wing, a dog that had to have 14 teeth removed, a farm pig rescued when the truck hauling it overturned, a horse that survived cancer but has digestive problems and a goat missing one leg.

In all, there are 60 animals at the sanctuary. Kay and SanFilippo expect the animals to finish their lives there.

Sometimes, that end of life is a lot longer than either of them, and veterinarians, ever expected.

“They come in as hospice (animals) that are expected to live for two weeks. Two years later, they are here. They come and they don’t want to leave,” SanFilippo said.

Kay, SanFilippo said, “has such a knack to know ... how to let it heal and be an animal in its own space.”

Not all of the animals will stay there forever, however. A guardianship program connects pets with special needs to senior adults who are lonely but cannot afford veterinarian and food costs.

“It is a forever foster program. We find them a match and pay for the food and medical so they can live out their lives with them,” Kay said.

Preparing for the cold snap, Kay, SanFilippo and volunteers have been stacking hay bales around enclosures, draping pens and stalls with heavy blankets or rugs, and worked to ensure water and feed do not freeze.

Everything “is covered with Persian rugs that people have donated – or hay bales,” Kay said. “They have their own igloos in the barn.”

The basement fowl will stay inside until they’ve indicated they are ready to go out again, Kay said. Their No. 1 homebody, who never is all that interested in going outdoors warm or cold, is a potbellied pig.

In all, it takes about $10,000 a month to cover expenses to feed, vet and house the menagerie, Kay said – donations like the $1,727.24 raised in just one week this month by the fourth grade class at Nippersink School District 2′s Richmond Grade School.

Both women work full-time jobs in addition to caring for the animals. They self-fund some of the care, but also rely on donations. “There are no government grants. It is all through private donation,” SanFilippo said.

For more information on Stardust Animal Sanctuary, visit stardustanimalsanctuary.org.