65 goats seized from CT property taken to rehabilitation facility
REDDING — Sixty-five goats were seized from a Redding property this week, a state Department of Agriculture official told Hearst Connecticut Media on Thursday.
Department officials executed a search-andseizure warrant Wednesday at the Cross Highway property after receiving complaints about “injured goats and general care issues,” according to a department statement.
The most recent complaint the department received was in 2020, which prompted an investigation, the department said in a statement. In addition to a complaint received in October about general care issues, the department received complaints dating to 2017 “regarding roaming goats and the number of goats on the property,” the department stated.
Nancy Burton, who resides at the property, has not returned Hearst Connecticut Media’s request for comment.
The goats were transported to a state rescue and rehabilitation facility in Niantic until the case is settled in the court system, according to a Department of Agriculture statement.
The “Second Chance Large Animal Rehabilitation Facility” is considered a “collaborative effort between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Correction,” according to its website. Inmates from York Correctional Institution, where the facility is located, are allowed to work with the program. York is considered a high-security prison for female offenders only.
The barn for the facility was built in 2003 and a second was added in 2015. More than 200 horses and other livestock have spent time at the facility, according to the site.
“The driving force behind this initiative is the desire to respond faster to large animal cruelty cases,” the website states.
Burton first adopted a goat — Katie the Goat — in 2008, according to court documents Burton has filed, including an appeal against Redding’s Zoning Board of Appeals and a complaint against the town of Redding and First Selectwoman Julia Pemberton.
“[Burton] later rescued two other goats from southeastern Connecticut and since that time the goat population at [Burtons] property has expanded,” she wrote in a complaint against the Zoning Board of Appeals, seeking to be allowed more goats on the property.
Redding’s zoning rules allow five goats per lot or one for every 0.4 acres of property. Burton’s property is 3.61 acres, according to town records, which would mean nine goats are allowed before needing to appeal to the Zoning Board of Appeals for additional goats.
The state Department of Agriculture said its investigation into the animals’ welfare is ongoing, but surveillance evidence confirmed its concerns over several matters including “mobility issues due to untrimmed hooves, excessive manure, lack of sufficient water, and structures in poor condition that did not provide adequate protection from the weather” on the property.