About the only amenities Sharon Linsenbardt’s chickens lack are spa treatments and nightly turndown service.
“I’ve got some birds out here that haven’t laid an egg in a decade,” she says, “and I’m still feeding them and pickin’ up their poop, but I don’t get any eggs out of ’em.”
A chicken usually stops laying eggs after three or four years, Linsenbardt explains, at which point most farmers will butcher them.
“But we don’t do that out here,” she says. “We keep them until they get little wrinkles in their faces.”
Such are the responsibilities of running The Las Vegas Farm, a working farm, farmers market and animal rescue.
During a recent USDA inspection, Linsenbardt was told her animals needed “enrichment.”
“So my chickens have to have toys in order for them to get through a day,” she says, wearily. “We’ve got little xylophones and little swings and little balls. These animals have to have some enjoyment with their day. All my chickens have stuff to play with now.”
‘I was very young’
Linsenbardt began farming at 7222 W. Grand Teton Drive in the northwest valley in 1961, the year after she graduated high school at 14.
“I was very young when I started this. I wanted a place to have my animals and my horses and my chickens,” she says. “I started out with just a few different breeds of chickens, and I was real special about the different breeds I had. And they all had their own little house.”
Before long, she started selling bags of eggs over the front fence.
“And then within 30, 45 minutes,” Linsenbardt recalls, “those people would be back at my gate and sayin’, ‘Can we see the chickens?’ And ‘I brought my neighbor.’ And ‘I brought my grandma.’ And ‘I brought my cousins.’ And ‘I brought my kids.’ Pretty soon, I was bringing everybody in and showin’ ’em chickens for a dollar bag of eggs, and I just couldn’t do that anymore. It was too time consuming.”
She started the farmers market as a more efficient way to sell those eggs. Honey from her beehives is always in demand. It’s sold under signage that explains that the color variations come from the different shrubs and flowers the bees can choose from each season.
Neighboring farmers also pitch in.
“This one has an apricot tree, and this one has a lemon tree, and this one has a wonderful vegetable patch for zucchini or for tomatoes,” Linsenbardt says. “Along with what I grow and what my neighbors bring me, then we’re able to supply my market.”
In addition to the eggs, honey and those fruits and vegetables, a recent visit found apples, cabbage, sweet potatoes, rainbow carrots, yams and squash, both butternut and spaghetti varieties, for sale. Whatever doesn’t sell is used to make jellies, pies and breads.
‘The hardest part’
Linsenbardt founded the nonprofit Barn Buddies Sanctuary as a way to help with the upkeep of all the abused, neglected or abandoned farm animals she’d rescued over the years.
“Every single thing that’s here is on its last legs when it arrives here,” she says.
Backy the horse went blind from conjunctivitis. Samantha the goat was found dehydrated in the desert surrounded by coyotes. They’ve made a home there among the rescued sheep, pigs, mules, donkeys, cows, ducks, tortoises, rabbits, llamas, alpacas and peacocks.
That’s in addition to the seemingly endless supply of cats — 23 were dumped over Linsenbardt’s fence in one night — that roam the farmers market each weekend. They’re the reason Linsenbardt says she hasn’t had a mouse in 20 to 30 years. Livestock guardian dogs, meanwhile, keep the coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions at bay.
Each resident animal now has a roof over its head, as well as blankets, automatic waterers and access to swamp coolers and a misting system that keeps flies away.
“You look on the internet, and you’ll see a pasture with 50 pigs out there all runnin’ together, all eating together and all cohabitating,” Linsenbardt says. “I don’t know. I must have some pretty spoiled pigs. I try to put two of them together, and we’ve got blood. So they’ve all got their own house and their own little blankie and their own little space.”
The sanctuary stays at capacity these days. The only time Linsenbardt can take in a new animal is when one of hers dies.
“The hardest part,” she says, “is knowing that something might die because I couldn’t bring it in.”
‘Costs are just insane’
Linsenbardt eventually had to start charging admission to see the animals.
On weekdays, the residents are let out to run and exercise and kick up their hooves across The Las Vegas Farm’s 10 acres. On weekends when it’s open to the public, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, the sanctuary becomes a petting zoo.
It’s $10 for those 13 and older and $5 for children 12 and younger. Hay to hand-feed the four-legged animals is $2 per paper bag. All that money goes back into their care.
“The costs are just insane out here to try to do what I do,” Linsenbardt says. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got, but we are always short on funds and long on need for people to help us.”
Feed bills are around $15,000 a month, she says. It’s another couple of thousand dollars each month for the system that keeps the flies away and $500 to $600 every 10 days to remove garbage. Then there are the bills from the multiple veterinarian visits each week.
She’s currently trying to raise $55,000 to add sewer services after visitors started complaining about having to use her well-maintained portable toilets.
“I couldn’t do it without the amazing volunteers that I have,” Linsenbardt says of the day-to-day upkeep. “Now that my husband’s 82 and I’m 80, we just can’t do what we used to do.”
She’s always hustling for donations, either monetary or time from volunteers, to keep the farm and sanctuary running.
“We’re here to serve the community. And we’re here to serve the needs of the animals that need our care and need a soft place to spend the rest of their life,” Linsenbardt says. “There’s just no one like us here in the valley. There just isn’t.”
Contact Christopher Lawrence at [email protected] or 702-380-4567.
Harvest festival
The Las Vegas Farm’s annual fall harvest festival will feature food and activities including a corn maze. In addition to the usual farmers market items, the festival promises at least a dozen varieties of pumpkins and squash. There’s no charge to shop at the market, but admission to the activities and to see the resident rescue animals is $10 for those 13 and older and $5 for those 12 and younger. It’s open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays in October at 7222 W. Grand Teton Drive. All proceeds benefit the nonprofit Barn Buddies Sanctuary.