Overview
- The Gentle Barn hosted its Gentle Thanksgiving events on Thursday, inviting visitors to feed, pet and cuddle turkeys as an alternative holiday experience.
- Year‑round turkey cuddle therapy is now a core offering at the nonprofit’s Tennessee and California sanctuaries, expanding beyond its original focus on trauma‑affected groups.
- The Santa Clarita site expected about 200 attendees with timed reservations, and both locations offer options to sponsor individual rescued turkeys.
- Rescued animals receive specialized care, including a turkey treated with acupuncture for hip pain and a goat using a custom wheelchair; the Tennessee farm houses about 60 animals within a system of 200‑plus.
- Visitors and volunteers report calming, therapeutic effects from close contact with the birds, with one student cradling a blind turkey named Smudge until it fell asleep, and staff citing CDC‑aligned avian flu safeguards that can pause new bird intake.