Texas Cattle Ranch Goes Vegan – Renée King-Sonnen Turns Her Husband’s Cattle Ranch into Rowdy Girl Vegan Animal Sanctuary
Renee King-Sonnen spoke at the 2019 Conscious Eating Conference in Berkeley, California, recently where she shared her powerful story of courage and transformation, turning her husband’s generations-old cattle ranch into an animal sanctuary. Today Renee and her husband are bold vegan advocates, animal rights activists, animal sanctuary owners, and advocates for fellow ranchers to make the same change they did by transforming their animal farms into places of compassion for animals. Renee is a testimony to the power of the human will to fundamentally and radically change our lives in ways that may seem impossible—but make us far happier, align with our personal values, and make our soul’s sing.
King-Sonnen married her Texas cattle rancher husband for the second time in 2010. She said she loved and adored her husband “but couldn’t stand what he represented—raising and killing animals for food.” A symbol of the horror these animals were about to face was when the “red trailer” drove up the driveway to load up all the baby calves and truck them to the “sell barn” for slaughter. “The red trailer had taken away so many innocent babies and lives from their mamas!” Renee knew she had to make a dramatic change, she was miserable, and could not continue seeing young cattle being sent to slaughter. So what did Renee do? She did the only thing she knew to do—she called another ex-cattle rancher turned vegan and animal activist, Howard Lyman, and asked him for help. She confessed she was on the verge of divorce and wasn’t happy and was spending all day with the cows, and could he help her? Lyman first suggested that she “first stop calling her husband a murderer for what he was doing to his cattle, and instead, invite him into her world of compassion and empathy for animals.” So, King-Sonnen took Lyman up on his advice and the rest is history as they say.
After Lyman’s phone call, Renee decided her next step was to buy all 124 of her husband’s cows—herself—by launching a crowd-source funding campaign to raise the money. In two short weeks, the campaign raised over $30,000 dollars to purchase every single cow. Then Renee went to work on transitioning the ranch into an animal sanctuary with the money—and Rowdy Girl Animal Sanctuary was born. During this time, Renee and her husband aligned their values of compassion and empathy for animals by going vegan. They stopped eating animal foods, learned to cook 100 percent plant-based meals, lost weight, got healthier, and started advocating for others to make the same positive changes in their lives, that was making such a difference for them.
Out of this all-embracing transformation, came even greater change with two new nonprofit advocacy programs, the Rancher’s Advocacy Program (RAP) to transition fellow ranchers who wanted out of animal farming to help them transform their farms into organic plant-based farms instead. For their animals, they advocated creating an animal sanctuary or placing their animals in an existing animal sanctuary. The second advocacy program Renee started is Families Choosing Compassion Program for FFA/4H kids who are raising farm animals but don’t want to sell their animals at auction for slaughter. Instead, Renee encourages these kids to embrace compassionate alternatives to selling their animals for food, recommending they give their animals to local animal sanctuaries instead, and let them live out their lives in peace.
At the conference Renee implored, “The food and agriculture industry has brainwashed us, it’s time to wake up! We must change—a change that reflects a whole different concept. Animal farming is no longer acceptable. This message I convey to cattle ranchers, chicken ranchers—all ranchers, to transition to a compassionate way of life that doesn’t kill animals, or cause animals to suffer. I am not just an animal advocate, I am a rancher’s advocate.” “Animals are friends, not food.”
The Rowdy Girl Mission
“Rowdy Girl Sanctuary is the evolution of a very special story of two native Texans—one a multi-generational cattle rancher and former hunter; the other one, his wife, an ex-rodeo lover, and leather cowboy boot collector. Their story has turned into a mission to build an organization that rescues farm animals; and to be good stewards of their care forever in a sanctuary determined to become a state of the art animal care facility, and a plant-based/environmental resource education center. Rowdy Girl Sanctuary will inspire other ranchers to experience a paradigm shift and help them move from participating in the cruelty of factory farming to living out compassion towards the animals whose lives usually end in brutal death.”
Renee King-Sonnen at the 2019 Conscious Eating Conference
Rancher’s vegan wife sets out to save cattle
Cattle Rancher’s Wife Goes Vegan?! Interview With Renée King Sonnen Of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
Song About “The Red Trailer,” by Renee King-Sonnen
Ways to Help Support Rowdy Girl Sanctuary
Check out Rowdy Girl: http://www.rowdygirlsanctuary.org/RAP
Check out the Rancher Advocacy Program or (RAP), or call (979) 314-9925.
Check out the Families Choosing Compassion Program for FFA/4H kids
Become a member – for as little as $15 a month, to help feed, build barns, provide veterinary care, buy veterinary supplies, buy hay and much more. Learn more at RowdyGirlSanctuary.org/membership
Make a donation – online at: www.RowdyGrilSanctuary.org
Follow them on Instagram –at rowdygirlsanctuary
Like their Facebook page at – /RowdyGirlSanctuary and /VeganJournalOfARanchersWife
