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Tuesday, July 30, 2002

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

When OohMahNee Farm near Hunker, Westmoreland County, holds its first open house Sunday, there'll be plenty of chickens, cows and pigs, but no meat.

The animals will be eating, not eaten, which is the whole point of the place that calls itself a "farmed animal sanctuary."

	Jason Tracy, left, and his wife, Cayce Mell, co-directors of OohMahNee Farm in Westmoreland County, are still taking care of abused and displaced farm animals as they did when this photo was taken in April 2001. (Lake Fong, Post-Gazette)

The farm, with the unusual name that is a play on "humane," was started seven years ago as a private lifelong sanctuary for abused, abandoned and displaced farm animals. But the need was so great, says co-director Cayce Mell, that OohMahNee incorporated as a nonprofit and has grown into one of the biggest sanctuary groups in the country.

These 100 acres now are home to about 700 chickens and 300 other animals, which are maintained daily by Mell and seven other staffers and several volunteers. The group also places animals elsewhere, assists law enforcement officials with abuse and neglect cases and initiates rescues, such as the one two years ago of thousands of chickens from a tornado-struck Ohio egg farm.

Now the sanctuary is adding a new focus aimed at humans: This first annual open house coincides with the ribbon-cutting for the OohMahNee Humane Education Center. The first floor of a renovated farmhouse, it houses videos and exhibits, including a veal crate and an electrified hen cage, that are designed to teach visitors about animal issues such as factory farming. OohMahNee obviously is strongly opposed to such practices, arguing that they hurt not just the animals -- it joins other groups in boycotting that Ohio egg farm for "enslaving" millions of hens -- but also the environment and human health.

"Hopefully, it will give people a lot to think about," says Mell, who notes that "we know this is a controversial lifestyle. ... We're very used to adversity and people questioning and challenging. We welcome that because it's a necessary part of education."

So you don't have to be a vegan or even know that that's a person who eats no animal products to attend the open house. Mell hopes for a cross section of visitors. "Now that we know who we are, we want everybody else to."

Admission is free, but donations will be collected at the event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Besides taking self-guided tours and enjoying the animals, visitors can check out exhibitors of cruelty-free products and information, bid in a silent auction and play in a children's area.

Speakers, on stage between 1 and 4 p.m., include Joanne Stepaniak, Pittsburgh-based author of several vegan cookbooks and books; Cheri Ezell-Vandersluis, a former dairy goat farmer who donated her herd to OohMahNee and switched to raising plants; and "Mad Cowboy" author Howard Lyman, the former cattle rancher who along with Oprah Winfrey was sued for defamation by Texas cattlemen (a lawsuit that was rejected after a much-publicized five-week trial).

Vegetarian food will be for sale, provided in part by Maggie's Mercantile, a gourmet organic and vegan restaurant and store that Mell's mother, Margaret Raphael, runs on Route 711 near Donegal.

The farm is located on Route 819. For directions and more information, call 724- 755-2420 or visit the Web site http://www.oohmahneefarm.org.