Out of Africa Animal Sanctuary was established in 2002. Our founders, Sandy Raubenheimer and her husband, emigrated from South Africa, settled northwest of Edmonton, and have been rescuing animals for the past 19 years.
The sanctuary currently has 114 animals in its care of which 39 are horses! They include a draft horse, many miniatures, a donkey, an Arabian, retired pace horses and thoroughbreds.
Each and everyone of these horses are dear to our hearts! Their individual personalities make us laugh and we are so grateful to give them sanctuary and love.
Several of our horses were slated for slaughter as well as dropped off at our sanctuary. We do have a little miniature only 8.2 hands who appeared in our field one day. We believe that he was pushed through our fence so we could give him a safe loving home. This little guy was put into a pasture with some of our horses and what do you know, we went to check on him and he had disappeared. He had made his way with those tiny little hooves of his into another pasture where he found himself a friend. This friend was a Percheron Clydesdale draft horse who had been rescued from slaughter.
He had been specifically bred but was the ‘wrong colour’. This gentle giant, appropriately named Hulk, would let this miniature hang out standing underneath him.
On another occasion this miniature horse was moved to another pasture where once again he disappeared only to be found with Hulk. We have no idea how he was able to squeeze through the fences but as we have never been privy to actually witness his antics, he was named Houdini.
Houdini has since made his way into the neighbour’s field when he seems to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence! This past winter we buckled a blanket on him only to find him later happily beside it!
He is so very sweet, we have no idea where he came from to this day. That said, his friendship with Hulk is something to behold!
We at Out of Africa would like to give a heartfelt thank you to the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition and Jann Arden’s HorseShit Campaign for their donation. Each and every one of our 39 horses are so very fortunate to have donors who care about them as much as we do!
