The Abridged version:
- Kathryn Nicole and Melissa Nygard founded Sanctuary Mixtape to provide a home for rescued farm animals.
- Every resident at the sanctuary is named for a song, band or musician inspired by the couple’s love of music. There’s also a Spotify playlist.
- The sanctuary partners with others across the region to provide mutual support on needs like healthcare and transportation.
This story was reported by a member of the Abridged by PBS KVIE Community Reporters program. The Community Reporters program empowers local residents to report stories with guidance and support from the Abridged editorial staff.
The next time you drive east on Business 80, look right after passing the Watt Avenue exit and you may be lucky enough to spot goats playing around a small blue house, cows grazing on fresh green grass or an 800-pound pig cooling off in a luxurious mud pit.
However, the goats’ milk will not be extracted to make cheese for an artisan pizza, those cows will not be slaughtered and ground into a patty for a burger, and that pig is not destined to become the “B” in a BLT. Instead, they are all inhabitants of Sanctuary Mixtape, a privately funded, grassroots farm animal sanctuary just outside Sacramento city limits dedicated to providing a safe environment for maltreated animals to prosper in a second chance at life.
Sanctuary Mixtape was founded and is operated by married couple and vegan animal rights activists Kathryn Nicole and Melissa Nygard. Before Nicole and Nygard had the property to house large animals, they started as weekly volunteers at local sanctuaries to familiarize themselves with the physical, mental and financial effort it takes to rescue maltreated, often traumatized farm animals. They soon discovered there was big demand for transporting large animals from farms to sanctuaries.
In 2020, starting with a trailer hitched to an SUV, the couple began transporting animals in need from farms to sanctuaries up and down the West Coast, from Oregon to Southern California.
“We just offered our services to anybody, and we just asked if you would pay for gas,” said Nygard. The transport service was ultimately branded as Tommy’s Transport Team, named after the first calf Nicole and Nygard ever rescued. Over the years, Tommy’s Transport Team evolved into primarily a permanent farm animal sanctuary operation and was ultimately rebranded as Sanctuary Mixtape.
Putting the ‘mixtape’ in Sanctuary Mixtape
Nicole and Nygard have a unique approach to naming each rescue animal they take in, as most names are inspired by songs, bands or musicians. They also maintain a public Sanctuary Mixtape playlist of namesake songs and artists on Spotify.
“We both just love music…and we love so many genres,” said Nicole. “Our pig Ziggy is named after David Bowie for Ziggy Stardust, our goats are named after EDM music that we like.” Other residents of the sanctuary include a rooster and hen duo, Maynard and Carina, named after Maynard James Keenan and Carina Round of the rock band Puscifer. Keenan is also the lead singer of Tool and A Perfect Circle. One of the barn cats is even named Puscifer. “If you can’t tell, we really like that band,” added Nicole.
The sanctuary is home to massive rooster, Davey, named after Wavy Davey, the alter ego of the lead singer of the band Glass Animals.
If you’re more into country music, meet cows Hank and Dolly, named after Hank Williams and Dolly Parton. Hank was rescued from a rodeo that treated him so poorly, he now has a “severe mistrust in people,” according to Nicole. While Hank has gotten used to Nicole and Nygard in his new home, they never test his space. If “Hank comes into town, that’s Papa Hank and everybody would scatter, even the people. We all know, you scatter when Hank comes,” warned Nygard.
But Hank has a nurturing side as well. Once Nicole was charged by a water buffalo they were temporarily fostering on the property.
“I was attempting to run away and I’d tripped and fallen,” recalled Nicole, “the first thing I did was call for Hank, who came over and stood over me, and the water buffalo backed off. I was like ‘[Hank] you do love me!’”
Hank is the patriarch and Dolly is the matriarch within the hierarchy of cows on the sanctuary pasture.
“She’s amazing,” said Nicole of Dolly, “every person that goes around her is totally fine.”
However, Nicole and Nygard routinely take the tips off Dolly’s horns as a safety precaution as she has been known to go after other cows. Next down the hierarchy is Dolly’s son, River, named after the song “River” by English singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs. Another cow on the pasture, Bishop, is named after the singer-songwriter herself. Bishop’s mother, Florence, is named after the band Florence + The Machine.
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One of the most celebrated animals on the sanctuary is a cow named Bronson, named after an electronic dance music trio.
“If veganism is a cult, then Bronson’s our God,” joked Nicole. Bronson was rescued from a dairy farm where he was going to be killed due to being born a male in an operation where only female cows are profitable.
Humans aren’t the only ones enjoying music on the property. Nicole and Nygard play music out loud from an outdoor speaker for the animal residents to enjoy throughout the day.
“There’s always music playing. Especially if it’s a hot, stressful day, like I’ll turn on a classical symphony…It’s something more interesting to listen to than the constant freeway,” Nicole said.
A Sacramento sanctuary community network
Sanctuary Mixtape is part of a larger sanctuary community network that spans the Sacramento region. Sister sanctuaries include Only Sunshine Sanctuary in Elverta, Rory Pond Rescue Ranch in Wilton and PreetiRang Sanctuary in Dixon. These sanctuaries routinely work together, along with volunteers, to provide the necessary healthcare, transportation and infrastructure that maintains quality of life for their animal inhabitants.
Sanctuary Mixtape has a regular team of weekly volunteers who help with routine feeding and maintenance chores that keep the sanctuary going while Nicole and Nygard each work full-time jobs. Nicole is a registered veterinary technician at an emergency veterinary center in Sacramento. Nicole was initially inspired to pursue a veterinary career after she and Nygard began fostering farm animals. Nicole’s ability to provide medical care on site provides emotional stability for the animals and financial stability for the sanctuary as healthcare “is the most expensive part of animal rescue,” according to Nicole. Nygard is a research and development manager for a cannabis tissue culture lab located near the sanctuary which provides her with the flexibility to come home at a moment’s notice in an emergency situation.
Nicole and Nygard even respond to emergencies at other sanctuaries to save animals during the fire season.
“All of us sanctuaries have a network that we all talk to each other, so the second something happens, I can pick up my trailer and my truck and I’m on my way to wherever the fire is,” said Nygard. Their experience running Tommy’s Transport Team helped prepare Nicole and Nygard for intense emergency situations. “That first fire evacuation…We would literally be driving into fire. My wife was right next to me and we’re both, like, no fear. Just doing it,” recalled Nicole.
Veganism and direct action
When the couple first met, Nicole was vegetarian and Nygard still ate meat. The idea to live a vegan lifestyle all started when Nicole was petting one of their dogs one day. According to Nygard, when Nicole was petting the dog’s stomach, Nicole noticed the dog’s nipples and thought,
“I would never drink milk from you. Why am I drinking the milk from this cow?” which inspired Nicole to immediately begin practicing veganism. Nygard admits that it took her a little more time to make the transition from an omnivorous to plant-based diet.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was kind of weirded out by it, didn’t understand,” Nygard said, until one day the couple stumbled across an animal rights demonstration that included televisions showing footage of slaughterhouse and factory farming procedures. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to see that’,” said Nygard. She ended up picking up a PETA pamphlet and, Nygard explained, “I learned about downed cows, and learned about the egg industry, and I went vegan.”
They began attending animal vigils where activists visit slaughterhouses to offer water and comfort to animals in line for slaughter and “pay it back to the anonymous or the voiceless,” said Nicole, “It was incredibly intense.”
The couple soon realized that they needed a balance in their lives if they were going to persevere.
“When you go and you do these incredible, difficult vigils where you’re, like, basically watching animals go to their death, you balance it by the next day then going and loving on a pig or loving on a rescued pal,” said Nicole.
How to get involved
Sanctuary Mixtape hosts public volunteer events a few times a year that are advertised on their Instagram, @sanctuarymixtape. While Nicole and Nygard encourage those interested in bettering the lives of animals to volunteer at Sanctuary Mixtape and their sister sanctuaries across the region, all volunteers must be respectful of all animals and should not force any animal to interact with them.
“This is their home, and we are, you know, stepping into it to try to enrich it for them. But it’s still their home, so we’re going to treat it as such,” said Nygard.
The privately funded Sanctuary Mixtape also accepts monetary donations and maintains an Amazon wishlist. While the sanctuary accepts donations, it does not rely on donations, nor does it make a profit on donations.
Andrew Spittler is a member of the Abridged Community Reporters program.