Redbird Willow Farm
Michele Hornsby spent thirty years in sales and marketing. She started as a receptionist. She worked every job imaginable. She ended up managing, leading, doing the things that people who survive thirty years in one field learn to do.
In 2017, her son Justin died by suicide. He was twenty-six years old. It happened on the family's property in Saks.
What They Did With the Land
The spot where Justin died became a place of what Michele has called "sorrow and fear." She and her husband Ray had to decide what to do with it.
Ray built a cross and a bench at the site. They put it there for Justin, and they kept going out to it.
They had gotten goats to clear brush on the property. They acquired a llama named Justine — pregnant — for Michele's niece. Justine delivered her foal on International Bereaved Mothers Day, near Justin's memorial on the land. The foal arrived at that specific moment on that specific day, and Michele took it as a sign that they were on the right path.
They named the foal Willow. The farm took its name from the journey — Redbird, for grief and the long way through it, and Willow, for the first creature born there.
What It Is Now
Redbird Willow Farm is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit at 1103 Lenlock Lane in Anniston. It has more than 120 animals: llamas, alpacas, miniature horses, Valais Blacknose sheep, Scottish Highland cattle, emus, peacocks, pygmy goats, Nigerian Dwarf goats, Flemish Giant rabbits, Lionhead rabbits, ducks, miniature donkeys, cats — all of them part of what she has built on the place where her son died.
She left her career in sales to run the farm full time. She runs farm tours, llama yoga, goat yoga, llama lunches, llama hiking, birthday parties, holiday events. School groups come. Homeschoolers come. Veteran groups come. Addiction recovery programs come. Nursing homes schedule visits.
Every third Thursday, a group of ten to twelve bereaved parents meets at the farm. Not a program. Just parents who have lost children, gathering in a place that was built from that loss.
The farm's highest point has a thirty-foot cross.
The Stolen Alpaca
In March 2026, a three-year-old male Suri alpaca named Chappy was stolen from the farm.
The story made regional news. Michele said: "This isn't just a loss for us — it's a loss for the community. These animals are part of how we help people hold on, especially in their hardest moments."
That sentence tells you what kind of farm this is. Chappy was not livestock. He was a weight-bearing member of the place — someone's reason to come back the following week.
The Philosophy
Michele Hornsby has said: "We've always embraced the fact that you should run towards the things that are most frightening to be able to manage them and cope with them."
She also said: "There is a way to feel better after such a devastating loss. It's not going to be a farm for everybody, but everybody has something that will bring them back."
The farm does not claim to cure anything. It claims to give you one afternoon where the weight lifts enough to breathe. In 2017, on a piece of land in Saks, it was not obvious that this was where the story was going. It went here.
Redbird Willow Farm is at 1103 Lenlock Lane, Anniston, Alabama. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit healing farm open to the public. Farm tours $10. For information about the monthly bereaved parents' group or volunteer opportunities, visit redbirdwillowfarm.com. Note: In 2025, Matt Headley's two babydoll sheep, Silver and Shadow, came to live at Redbird Willow when the Headley flower farm closed. Contact Southern Legends.
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Redbird Willow Farm — on camera
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