Tasmania’s champion of forgotten animals

GRACE Hills is a teenager with a bold plans to make the lives of all animals a little better.

Grace Hills with some of the animals she has rescued, Henry the rooster and Harley the horse, at her Hayes property in the Derwent Valley. Picture: MATT THOMPSON.

GRACE Hills is a teenager with a bold plans to make the lives of all animals a little better.

Ms Hills, 19, started rescuing animals when she was nine years old and is now running a small animal sanctuary from her Hayes home.

Within the property, she has up to 120 animals including 70 hens and roosters, two horses, three orphaned sheep, guinea pigs, cockatiels, canaries, budgies and a rainbow lorikeet.

One of her horses, Harley, was a failed racehorse she saved from being killed.

Ms Hills even has an orphaned pademelon she is nursing back to full health with the intention of releasing it back into the wild.

Over the years Ms Hills also has adopted injured ducks, as well as dogs, cats and birds, which she tries to rehome quickly.

Ms Hills said rescuing hens and roosters were her main passion and she often went searching for them on roads around the region.

“I have always had and liked animals and the first three chooks I got off the side of the road were dumped just down the road,” she said

Ms Hills said her ultimate goal was to set up a registered wildlife sanctuary, similar to Brightside Farm Sanctuary, at Cradoc.

Originally published as Tasmania’s champion of forgotten animals