Education and Visits
Guided Sanctuary Visits
At River Haven Sanctuary, we welcome guests for guided visits that introduce them to our animal residents and to the work of compassionate animal care. This is not a zoo tour. The animals you’ll meet here are not on display. Each one arrived from a situation that wasn’t working — neglect, abandonment, a slaughter pipeline, or a home that simply couldn’t keep them. They live here on their own terms, and we walk you through their home as their guests.
what a visit looks like
Each guided visit lasts about an hour. A docent leads you down our central driveway, with six stops along the way. You’ll meet our horses, donkeys, pigs, goats, turkeys, and chickens, and you’ll hear each animal’s story — where they came from, what brought them here, and what good welfare looks like for their species. We talk about animal welfare in concrete, kid-friendly terms, anchored to the animals in front of you rather than to abstract issues.
Animals here choose whether to interact. Some will approach the fence; some won’t. Our free-roaming pigs, turkeys, and chickens may walk right up to you. The rule of the place is that the animals lead, and we follow. That principle — that animals get to make decisions about their own lives — is at the heart of every visit, and it’s the welfare lesson we hope every guest leaves with.
who can come
Visits are designed for guests aged 7 and older. We’ve set this age minimum because younger children have a hard time with the heat, the bugs, the uneven terrain, the manure, and the rules that make animals feel safe (no running, no chasing, no grabbing). One adult must accompany every two children. Group size is capped at 8 guests per visit so that each animal interaction can be calm and supervised.
We offer visits once a week during our late-spring through early-fall season, in morning slots when the heat is gentlest on animals and humans alike.
what we ask of guests
To keep the experience good for the animals — and meaningful for you — we ask all guests to:
– Stay with the group throughout the visit.
– Use quiet voices. No running, chasing, or sudden movements.
– Let animals choose whether to interact. Pet them gently if they come to you; respect their distance if they don’t.
– Not enter any fenced enclosure. We meet our equines and goats at the fence.
– Not feed any animal. Each one is on a specific diet, and one piece of the wrong food can cause real problems.
– Wear shoes you don’t mind getting dirty. Real-life sanctuary terrain includes manure and mud.
– Refrain from publicly tagging our location on social media. We are intentionally not listed on Google Maps, for reasons we’re glad to share in person.
booking
All visits must be booked in advance through our online reservation system. We don’t accept walk-ins or unscheduled visits — every guest goes through booking so we can keep groups small and the animals’ days predictable.
internships and the next generation
Part of our work at the sanctuary is helping the next generation of animal caregivers, educators, and welfare advocates form their relationships with animals on better foundations than most of us did. We currently partner with two academic institutions to make that possible.
We host paid interns from the University of Rhode Island’s Animal Science program. URI students complete twice-weekly feed and care shifts at the sanctuary and assist with veterinary care as needed, gaining hands-on experience with rescued farm animals across the species we house.
We also partner with The Met High School in Providence to bring high school students into our cooperative-care training program. Met students study animal behavior and consent-based, positive-reinforcement training, and assist in our formal training sessions — including with Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, our three young goats who are learning, on their own terms, that human handling can be safe and welcome.
Both programs reflect a belief that runs through everything we do here: when young people learn to relate to animals through care, observation, and consent — rather than through use or display — those habits stay with them. Some of our interns will go on to careers in veterinary medicine, animal welfare, or sanctuary work. Others will simply carry a different kind of attention to animals into whatever they do next. Either outcome is a win for the animals they meet.
why we do this
Our mission is to give animals who have survived something a permanent, dignified home, and to offer the people who visit them a window into a different way of relating to animals. Most of us spend our lives connected to animals only by what they give us — food, entertainment, products. There is another way, one built on mutual care rather than use, and the animals here are how many people first encounter it.
We are especially interested in what visits can mean for younger guests. A child who spends an hour learning that a chicken has a best friend, that goats need their horns, that a pig is as bright as they are, often carries that information for the rest of their life. That hour, we believe, is one of the most powerful welfare lessons a young person can receive — not because we lecture them, but because we let the animals teach them.
We hope you’ll come visit.
