By Ben Mandell For Times Leader

Jake, a domestic short-hair male, plays with a ball at Blue Chip Animal Refuge recently. Submitted photo

Jake, a domestic short-hair male, plays with a ball at Blue Chip Animal Refuge recently.

Submitted photo

Blue Chip not letting coronavirus stop care for furry friends

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Everyone is feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Blue Chip Farm Animal Refuge.

Fortunately, Blue Chip has not had to go through as many struggles as one might expect during this pandemic.

“We have actually adopted out a lot of dogs over the last couple of weeks,” founder Margie Bart said. “And our regular volunteers have been coming.

“The donations have dropped off though. We survive on donations, and so our big concern is the monetary aspect.”

Blue Chip Farm is a zero-kill animal shelter that has operated over the last 15 years, to “provide care, comfort and safety to every single animal,” according to the group’s website.

In order for the shelter to stay open, they depend on donations so they can provide care for every animal they have.

“We have seen about a 30 percent drop off so far in March,” Bart said. “We have large vet bills. Every dog and cat that we get goes to the vet and gets checked out before we adopt them.

“Usually we lose money on every adoption anyway. For example, if we adopt a dog out for $250, we usually spent about $300 to $400. So it is all deficit spending, so we rely on the donations.”

On the bright side, people are still adopting, and Blue Chip still has volunteers coming for the many animals there.

“We have about 20 core volunteers and probably 230 animals,” Bart said. “We have horses. We have pigs. We have a goat. We have a sheep. We have dogs and cats.”

With the coronavirus shutting down much of the county and state, Blue Chip has also taken precautions in the application process and is not open for visitors during the pandemic.

“What we are doing is you can only come if you have an approved application,” Bart said. “Normally people can come and then put an application in.

“For the application you’d have to get a good vet reference, which we call and check, if they rent we call their landlord and then we look at their house to see if it’s fit for the dog to live there,” Bart said. “We are doing this to keep the general public from coming in so right now, you can only come in with an approved application.”

More information about Blue Chip Farm and ways to donate can be found on its website bcfanimalrefuge.org.