Tommy Sonnen's journey from cattle rancher to vegan advocate is nothing short of remarkable. Growing up in a family steeped in ranching traditions, Tommy seemed destined to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors. Yet, his path took a dramatic turn when he reconnected with his ex-wife, Renee King-Sonnen, who had embraced a vegan lifestyle. This pivotal moment would set the stage for a transformation that would change their lives—and the lives of countless animals—forever.
Tommy wasn't always a full-time rancher. While he did grow up around ranching, his career led him to work at Dow Chemical, and ranching was more of an investment than a passion. However, when Renee's deepening connection with a cow named Rowdy Girl became too powerful to ignore, Tommy found himself at a crossroads. Renee's insistence on not selling the cows—eventually leading her to purchase them herself—marked the beginning of their transition from cattle ranching to creating the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary, a safe haven for farm animals.
The journey wasn't easy. From facing natural disasters to navigating the complexities of running a sanctuary, Tommy and Renee encountered numerous challenges. But with the support of the vegan community and even some governmental help, they persevered. Tommy, once skeptical, began to see the profound health benefits of a plant-based diet and the positive environmental impact of moving away from animal agriculture.
Today, Tommy Sonnen is a vocal advocate for veganism and sustainable farming. He encourages others in the farming community to consider making the transition, not just for the health benefits, but for the future of our planet. Tommy's story is a powerful testament to the possibility of change, no matter your background or previous beliefs.
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DISCLAIMER: Please understand that the transcript below was provided by a transcription service. It is undoubtedly full of the errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions. To understand the interview more completely and accurately, please watch it here: Tommy Sonnen's Side of the Story
Here's the transcript:
Glen Merzer: Welcome to the Glen Merzer show. could find us across all your favorite podcast platforms. You could find us on YouTube. And please remember to subscribe. And you could find us at RealMenEatPlants .com. My guest today is Tommy Sonnen, who was a cattle rancher and is not today a cattle rancher. Tommy, welcome to the show
Tommy Sonnen: Thank you for having me.
Glen Merzer: Well, let's hear your whole story. Where did you grow up, Tommy?
Tommy Sonnen: I was born and raised in Alvin, Texas. That's about 40 miles south of Houston. When I was raised as a small boy, it was a small town and you had to drive 30, 45 minutes to get to the next town, which is close to Houston. Now it's basically a part of Houston.
Glen Merzer: Okay.Um, and were you raised in a cattle ranching family?
Tommy Sonnen: Not really. my grandfather, uh, and my great, my great grandfather had a ranch between San Antonio and Houston back in the 1800s. He was born, uh, on Christmas day, 1859. And I'm not sure when exactly he started raising, uh, animals, but back then in this part of Texas, you didn't have to own your land. It was called the open range. If you branded the cows, they were, they were yours. And that went out of legal, you know, in 1937, I think is when open range stopped.
Glen Merzer: So, did that continue to be part of the family business?
Tommy Sonnen: No, you know, we had, he had a slaughterhouse in Houston in at the turn of the century and did pretty well there in Houston. And his son had a little ranch they bought for a dollar 50 an acre in Alvin, Texas. That's where I grew up. And in 1929, when the depression took hold, he lost all his business in Houston. He moved in with his only son, my grandfather.
in Alvin, Texas at the small ranch and they had a little slaughterhouse in Alvin and raised some cows there.
Glen Merzer: OK, so your grandfather had a slaughterhouse.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah, he had multiple slaughterhouses.
Glen Merzer: Multiple slaughterhouses.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah, and you know, he would raise the cows between San Antonio and Houston. And they were moved into, and I don't know the whole history, but I've got his brands and spurs and a lot of other artifacts from that time period. When he lost everything in Houston and moved in with his son, my grandfather and Alvin, they had a small place there until he died in 1937. After he died, my grandfather just had a few cows, you know, with the neighbors and everything. And, He was more of a, you know, an off a printer. They were trying to, he was a builder. And then he had three sons and one of them was my dad, the middle son. And my dad lied about his age to get into world war two. And after he came back from world war two, they didn't do a lot of, you know, ranching then they just kept a few cows, you know, right there on the, the, the home place. And my grandmother, now she sold turkeys, raised a crop of turkeys on most years. And then she sold eggs, 10 cents a dozen back when I was a kid. I don't know what they sold for back in the thirties and twenties, but she had always raised and every Friday, my grandmother, if you were the chicken that was the least producer, because she had about, I'd say between a hundred, 200 chickens at all times, but on every Friday. she would go out there and she'd find a chicken that wasn't producing and, there was a stump right at the gate. She chopped the head off and then, they had fried chicken every Friday.
Glen Merzer: Boy, those chickens must've been nervous about who was producing the least. They were probably pointing fingers at each other.
Tommy Sonnen: And you know, my family, more than likely all my relatives that have passed, if they were here today and saw what I've done with my life, I don't think they would be against it. I think they would think, you know, we had to do what we had to do to survive Texas in the 1800s. And then after the depression, you know, you didn't have a lot of opportunities and there was no beyond burgers down at the corner. Right now.
Glen Merzer: So your grandfather was raising some animals, but did he hold on to the slaughterhouses that were in the family?
Tommy Sonnen: No, no, that went away in 1929, the one in Houston and the small one in Alvin actually, it sat right really close to where the police station is now. And when he died, all went away in 1937.
Glen Merzer: So When you grew up, you were in a family that was raising some animals, but was not in the slaughterhouse business and didn't have a lot of cattle, right?
Tommy Sonnen: Right. And we didn't actually have any cows when I was growing up. My dad worked at Dow Chemical. And then when I was 18 years old, I went to work at Dow Chemical. But when he came back from the war, you know, there were lots jobs opening up everywhere. He had his saddle and everything, but he didn't do a lot of ranch work. it, I got back into it. you know, they, my family was always survivors. My dad, you know, he was in world war II. He was in Vietnam. and he taught me to survive, grow a garden, to, And, you know, the family, yes, they had slaughterhouse and they, they butchered cows, but it's not like what happens today. They used a bullet to put the cows down. And, when, when they went hunting, it was a disgrace to wound a deer. You didn't shoot running deer. You shot, you know, it was, it was just a disgrace. And what I noticed, growing up is the men got older in my family. They quit killing animals. They would go deer hunting, but all the young people would do the hunting. They would sit there and play cards and everything. My grandfather hunted for probably 15 years. The last 15 years he hunted, he never pulled the trigger on a deer. And I'd always say, well, have you seen any deer? Yeah. Well, have you shot any? No. Have you seen any big ones? Yeah. Have you shot any? No. and you know, I, I had even quit hunting when the first time I owned a piece of property that I lived on that deer were on, they became my friends. That was even before I was a vegan. I, you know, I, just had no desire to shoot them anymore. and what I've learned over the years is that people don't like to kill animals. They do it, you know, for survival. And yeah, there's some people that are off in the head that probably like to kill things. But, you know, when I bought that ranch that Renee converted to the vegan farm animal sanctuary, there were deer all over it. I didn't, I quit hunting well before I became a vegan.
Glen Merzer: All right. So how did you get into ranching?
Tommy Sonnen: Well, I always knew that it was in my background and I always loved land. And in Texas, due to the tax ramifications, you can't own land without paying high taxes unless you either cut hay on it, raise cows on it, or have a farm on it. It's an unbelievable subsidy that you. For instance, we'll just say 50 acres really close to Austin. If you have 50 acres close to Austin and you don't run cows on it and you don't have it listed in agriculture, you'll probably pay something like $20 ,000 of taxes a year. But if you put 20 cows on that 50 acres, you'll probably pay $100 a year. So what do you want to pay? $100 a year or $20 ,000 a And that's the reason that Beyond and Impossible and all these meat substitutes, vegan substitutes, can't compete with the animal ag, because animal ag gets subsidies right and left. It's incredible how much they get.
Glen Merzer: Yeah. So you had the land and you decided to avoid taxes, maybe I should raise cattle on it?
Tommy Sonnen: Well, let me go back. I started working in Dow as a contractor when I was the day I turned 18. I joined Dow when I was 25 in a really terrible job. And I worked my way up to and I went to school at night and I became a lab tech. And then I started running labs. And the people that I met at Dow, everybody, you know, did something with their money. Some people just raised their kids and bought a house. Some people, a lot of people that I knew and hung around with bought land and because we had pretty good jobs and we worked hard, we worked a lot of overtime. I would buy a piece of land to hunt on way out in West Texas. And then I never lived there. Then I would sell that and buy more land. know, I just parlayed it up until I was, about 40 years old, 45 years old, always, the land I had always leased it out to people. So I'd have low taxes and I would help them with the agriculture, the cows and the goats and everything, but I never had my own. just more or less kept it in agriculture so that I'd have low taxes. When I bought the place in 2002 down in Angleton, Texas, it was, I had 96 acres. And the lady had some cows on there when I bought it. And I said, well, what are you going to do with the cows? And, and, uh, she said, well, I'm going to sell them. And I said, well, let me see if we can work out a deal. And I just kept hers. And then I started adding more to it. And I got my herd up to about 30 female cows. I was never a big rancher. I, uh, I was just, you know, uh, if, if I had 30 female cows, I would sell maybe 20 to 25 calves every year, every six months, you know, to a year, I would go round up a few and sell them. And you kept the mamas. And anyway, it was, I was trying, what I was trying to do was to get a small herd of cows and be able to help and retire early. And I had the land paid off. I had herd of about 30 female cows in a bull, you know, you always have to have a bull. And then my ex -wife comes along, Renee. I was married to her in the nineties. And then we got back together and she came to the ranch. She wanted me to move to Houston. And I said, nah, I can't do that. And she moved into the ranch in 2010. We got married. right. Now,
Glen Merzer: Tommy, let me back you up. You had already been married to Renee.
Tommy Sonnen: Yes, we were married in the 1990s. She was a country and Western singer and, and, you know, go, I was her roadie and stuff like that.
Glen Merzer: And that was before you had this land with the cows.
Tommy Sonnen: Yes, I have land in West Texas with deer and goats and stuff on it.
Glen Merzer: you didn't have this land with the cows.
Tommy Sonnen: No, I was letting other people lease my land at that point.
Glen Merzer: OK, then you and Renee go your separate ways.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah,
Glen Merzer: You get the land with the cows.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah.
Glen Merzer: And then what? Renee comes back to visit.
Tommy Sonnen: we always, you know, kept in touch and we were on good terms. Yeah, it was it was crazy.
Glen Merzer: But we how did you meet originally when she was a country and Western singer?
Tommy Sonnen: Uh, my best friend who was a rancher, uh, back in about 1991, called me up one night. was on, uh, evening shift. So I got off about 11 o 'clock or 10 30 and he calls me up and goes, Tom, and come have one drink with me down here at the Hilton. And I said, no, I hung up. Cause he did this all the time. He called me back and said, just one drink, Tom, come up here. There's a girl that wants to meet you up I said, yeah, right. He called me back third time and somehow or another, said, okay, I'll come up there. I walked in there and Renee saw me and she came and he was lying. Of course she didn't want to meet me, but she came up and she was doing a little lounge act there and she sang crazy and sat in my lap and, and I was like, I thought, okay, she did want to meet me. Well, no, she didn't. was just part of her act, you know? And anyway, we hit it off and we got married about, I don't know, six months later. huh.
Glen Merzer: Okay. And that was back in the 1990s.
Tommy Sonnen: Yes.
Glen Merzer: All right. Then you go your separate ways, but you stay in touch.
Tommy Sonnen: Yes.
Glen Merzer: And now you got the land with the cows and Renee visits
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah, she visited me, you know, and I kept up with her. You know, I knew her where her mom lived and everything. anyway, we hit it off again. And I guess you'd call it double jeopardy. You know, I decided to give it another shot and she wanted me to move to Houston. I said, no, I like where I'm living. I like what I'm doing. You know, I got a little herd of cattle out here and what I discovered when I got the cows, you know, it wasn't like I was a novice at it because I had a lot of friends that were doing that kind of thing and helped them, you know, before I started. But the first year that I had my cows, before Renee got involved, I realized this is never going to make me any money unless I start raising my own hay. Because if you buy hay to feed them in the wintertime, you're not going to make any So I had friends that had a lot of land that I could cut hay on. So I bought all the equipment to cut hay. So now I'm selling hay and I've got cows and I'm working a lot of overtime at Dow and it was pretty busy life. I've never been one to be bored. huh. All right.
Glen Merzer: So now you're remarried. Yep. You're working at Dow. You're raising cattle, you're raising hay. Then what happens?
Tommy Sonnen: And then, uh, about 2013, Renee started getting really weird, you know, talking about why, why are you selling these animals? It's not right. And this gets worse and worse into 2014.
Glen Merzer: Was that after she fell in love with the cow called the rowdy girl?
Tommy Sonnen: Yes. What happened was I had a friend that had a couple of doggy calves, calves that didn't have mamas. And he wanted to sell them. I think they were 150 a piece. And I told Renee, hey, why don't we go look at these calves over here? Because she'd never opened a gate for me. She'd never get involved with anything. She was just paying in the rear as far as the cows went. And I said, why don't you consider buying a couple of calves in, going in with me on the herd. And, so I took her over there and she instantly and goes, yeah, I want them, but they became, her best friends, her babies, her kids, not her livestock. And, and then rowdy girl grew up and started having babies. And, and then, you know, all Rowdy girl and her babies were off limits to me. I should not even think about taking them to the cell barn. Uh, but she started watching, uh, you know, videos of slaughterhouses and stuff back in 2014 and probably even before. In fact, she was trying to justify it there for a while. Probably in 2013, she said, we're going to start going humane. We need to, uh, start eating all of our dairy products from this dairy over in she had a friend of hers that she met and we became a focal point for humane dairy. it was a small dairy farm. Guy would bring these giant ice chest over at our house with all the milk, the, cheese, the goat cheese, all different kinds of products, butter. And, like on the top of a gallon of milk would be a piece of tape that had the cows name on Dixie or fluffy or whatever. I, I never, and you know, sometimes there'd be like this much cream on top. Sometimes there'd be this much. Sometimes it'd be a little greenish color, pinkish color blue. And it kind of grossed me out at first, but after I got used to it, I said, okay, I can do this. I was drinking this humane cow milk and humane dairy product.
Glen Merzer: What gave it the different colors?
Tommy Sonnen: What they were eating.
Glen Merzer: OK. And and so what made this milk humane was it was was poetry read to the cows as they were milked?
Tommy Sonnen: What? No, that no, that that's. You got to listen to the process. OK, we did this for a while, and Renee was even she was trying to justify what I was doing, selling calves. And, and she comes up in 2014, you know, the last time I sold cows was February, 2014. And for the rest of the year, she was watching slaughterhouse videos and stuff. And, uh, she goes, why don't we eat our own cows? And I said, I don't want to eat a cow. know within your hypocrite. And, I said, Renee, I go to the store, buy a couple of little packages. That's all I need. And she goes, well, if you don't eat your own cows, you're a hypocrite. And, you need to pick out a cow and we're going to get, you know, the milkman to go butcher it and he's going to split it up amongst his customers. And so I said, well, I don't want to do that. She goes, well, then you're a hypocrite. And I said, look, if you want to do it, that's fine. Well, who should I take and have cut up? Well, I would do broke leg. The one that got out of the, the trailer that hurt his leg in the last time I sold cows. I called him broke leg. His name is Lucky now and he's still alive today because she went vegan right before he got slaughtered and cut up for the humane dairy customer or milkman. And we quit doing all that stuff when she went vegan on October 31st, 2014. She told me to get all the animal products out of the house that I couldn't have them in the house, et cetera, et
Glen Merzer: Now, were you thinking your wife had gone nuts?
Tommy Sonnen: I didn't know what to think. All I knew is I was thinking, you know, here comes second divorce and, she knows a lot of really good lawyers. and I gotta be very careful or I'm going to lose my ranch. -huh.
Glen Merzer: And, so you were nervous.
Tommy Sonnen: I went vegan about six months later, but it was, some craziness in between those times.
Glen Merzer: Let us talk about the in -between part. That sounds interesting.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, I'll tell you the first part, when all this came down,
Glen Merzer: well, okay, she was vegan October 31st. What about Halloween?
Tommy Sonnen: We went to my mom's house and she had beef stew and all my nephews and my sister and brother -in -law and all the kids were being served. And when Renee gets served, October 31st, 2014, She told my mother I can't eat this and there's all kind of activity noise going on. Everybody's having a good time until my wife goes. My mother said, you can pick it out, Renee. And she said, no, I can't pick it out. There's dead floating animal parts in here and I'm not doing that. And, she went vegan that day. and my family all probably thought, well, here we go again. Crazy Renee. And, but you know, I think of myself as a very open -minded person. If you can show me the statistical data. that proves a point, I will change my mind.
Glen Merzer: Is that what you said to Renee?
Tommy Sonnen: No, I didn't say that to Renee. There was a lot of craziness. She was trying to get me to watch slaughterhouse videos and I was going, no, I don't need to watch that stuff. I know what goes on.
Glen Merzer: You had visited slaughterhouses.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, yeah, I know what's going on because I've been a hunter my whole life.
Glen Merzer: But have you ever been inside a slaughterhouse?
Tommy Sonnen: I've never been on the kill floor. yeah, I've been in a lot of small slaughterhouses, you know, where I took my deer meat and stuff to, you know. I know exactly what goes down in them and I knew what my grandparents, great grandparents did. you know, my father got a 22 rifle, little B short rifle. The rule was when you had to wait till you were six years old and you got a 22. You didn't need to be taught any rules because you already knew them. You don't shoot toward livestock. You don't shoot toward the house. And you didn't have to be told not to shoot people because back in those days, guns were tools and they were used quite often. anyway, Renee was vegan. We're talking December, 2014, I've got a lot of, you know, young, almost grown calves out there. and, uh, here winter's coming on and, uh, Renee's gone and I start trying to load some up to take to the cell barn because I haven't bought into this vegan stuff at all. You know, I have no idea. She knows Kip Andersen and she's got an underground, uh, blog, you know something about secret diary of a rancher's wife. I have no idea. She's communicating with a bunch of vegans. I'm just trying to figure out how to save my ranch and get a divorce without losing it. And, because there's no way in hell I'm going to become a vegan. No way. And, at that point, and here she comes, she catches me loading cows and she comes out there and she goes, if you load these cows, I'm following you to sell barn. I'm either going to buy them back with your credit card or I'm going to go to jail and you're going to be the most embarrassed person in the county when you bail me out. And, and you know,
Glen Merzer: She was confident you would bail her out.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, that's what she said. I threw my hat on the ground. said every cast word in the book, stomping around and going, okay, that's it. I'm selling the whole herd. This is it. I'm getting out of the business and, And she comes back at me with this, you know, I'm, I'm doing anything I can to, you know, not be violent because I'm just upset. And, and she goes, well, if you're not, if you're going to sell the herd, why don't you just sell them to me? And I said, no. That would be crazy. No, I'll buy them. And then I'm thinking, okay, this will go away in a week or two because she can't buy them. I said, okay, I'll sell them to you to discount price. Well, will you lease the land to me for a dollar a year? I said, yeah. How about two years? Yeah. You know, thinking this is just like when we had the big fight two years ago about you need to get Rowdy girl and Houdini her first born calf to a sanctuary because they are screwing up everything. You won't let me sell them there. You know, they keep getting on the highway. The cops keep coming there. You know, that's how Houdini got her name because my rancher friends would call me up and go, Hey Tommy, the cops are out there with that Houdini calf. rowdy girl and Houdini knew how to slip the barbed wire fence and they would grow graze along the highway. Like the cops had been there 50 or 60 times I know of until they told me they were going to give me a ticket. And I said, look, my wife has gone vegan at this point. She was vegan and, she won't let me sell the cows. And the girl goes, well, I'm giving somebody a ticket next time they get out. And so then I had to put them in the hay compound. That was the only compound that would hold them. They couldn't escape out of them. They started eating all the winter
Glen Merzer: So what was the reaction of the cops to the news that you were coping with a vegan wife?
Tommy Sonnen: It was a lady cop and she, she stuck her finger like this and went, vegan. And she goes, look, I'm not going to write you a ticket today, but the next time I come out here, somebody's getting a ticket. When Renee came home, I told her the situation and I said, what are you going to do with your cows? You're fixing to get me a ticket or you a ticket. Somebody, you know, they're not going to overlook it anymore. And she goes, what can we do? said, well, the net wire fence we got is the hay compounds. So we put them in the hay compound where they started eating the centers of every bale of hay we had. And so, you know, her cows were always getting in the way of my operation. And, anyway, There we are in December. She blocked me from selling any more cows. She said she wanted to buy the place. And you know, if I had it to do all over again, Glen, I would not sell them to her. I would say, Renee, I don't want to sell them. I'm going to give them to you. And let's just start a vegan farm animal sanctuary right here in the heart of Texas where, you know, all my friends are, you Some of my friends were the president of a Missouri County Cattlemen's Association. You know, I had a lot. I'd lived in Missouri County my whole life. You know, I knew a lot of people doing the same thing I was doing. I am a trader and but you know, statistically I got in with a bunch of vegans that started showing me Dr. Campbell that did the China study kind of got me thinking about it. Number one for my health. Uh, I looked at
Glen Merzer: how was your health at the time?
Tommy Sonnen: Well, my dad died of heart attack when he was 62. I was weighing almost 250 pounds and, I was in my late fifties at that time and I was having trouble breathing when I crossed a big pasture and I knew I had issues. and
Glen Merzer: had you gotten to the doctor about your issues?
Tommy Sonnen: Oh, I go to the doctor every year
Glen Merzer: and what would the doctor tell
Tommy Sonnen: you know, doctors, here's a pill. Here's a pill,
Glen Merzer: you know, statins.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah. And, anyway, you know, I knew I needed to make some changes in my life. If I wanted to live the full life that I could, and so I started telling Renee, well, I'm going to start eating like you. And this is like right around the new I wasn't happy about it. I still wouldn't a vegan and I wasn't happy about the whole situation, but I thought, well, since she doesn't want me bringing meat in the house, I'll try to be a little healthier. And, I didn't like what she was having to eat. So I started cooking for myself a lot of, jalapeno peppers, onions, and tofu, you know, like, tofu scramble type stuff. And, pretty much the same thing all the time. And I was eating all I wanted. And wait, started falling off. I wasn't hungry. I lost about 45 pounds, think. Oh, in three, three, four months, it just started coming off and, uh, and, but I was still going to town and the only thing that kept there at the end, after I started getting into it at the end, The only thing that was keeping me from being vegan was I go to town to the Sonic and get a grilled cheese sandwich and I couldn't give up ice cream. May 2nd, 2015, we had our first big festival and I had bought into the sanctuary stuff. Renee had bought my cows, $30 ,000. And that was the worst mistake I made. That $30 ,000 I got probably cost me a half a million. because you know, vegans don't like people that buy cows and they didn't understand that I owned the ranch outright. Renee came into my life. I was fixing to retire from Dow Chemical. I needed that income, but I gave it up and I couldn't let the cows go for free because your hay equipment, you know, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and Anyway, if I had it all to do over again, go, no, I'm not selling you my cows. I'm going to donate them to the sanctuary and we're going to start. I had no idea what a vegan was. had no idea what a vegan farm animal sanctuary was. But I learned as I went and it was a crazy ride.
Glen Merzer: So Renee bought all the cows and decided to turn your property into a farm animal sanctuary. Is that right?
Tommy Sonnen: Yes.
Glen Merzer: And that's what you have today, the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary.
Tommy Sonnen: Yes. It's through a lot. You know, we got flooded down in Brazoria County three times. Hurricane Harvey was devastating. We had to evacuate the animals every time. The board of directors decided that we needed to move after Hurricane Harvey. And we bought this land up here in Welder County or actually Caldwell County. near Welder. And as soon as we bought it, know, COVID hit and, you know, just we've had a lot of bad luck, but we've had a lot of good luck. There's so many great people in this world that have helped us out and we're doing really well now.
Glen Merzer: Well, that's great. We'll take a quick break and we'll come back and find out about this transformation. Okay.
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Glen Merzer: We're back talking with Tommy Sonnen. We're up to the point of the story where his cattle ranch has turned into a farm sanctuary, the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. Now, you said you had to evacuate the animals during after storms like Harvey. Did you feel like Noah? What did you have to do because of this flood? Where did you put the animals?
Tommy Sonnen: Different places. We borrowed pastures from other ranchers or people that own land. But most of the animals went to the Brazori County Fair Barn. And it was nuts in there. It was so loud. were dogs, cats, pigs, goats, sheep, cows, know, craziness.
Glen Merzer: And so after the storm, after the weather dries up, you then..Take your animals back.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah. But the bad thing is, uh, on those floods from the Brazos river, when it, floods, it floods all your land and it kills all the grass. So the grass doesn't come back for well after, you know, the water goes away. And so, uh, you have to feed a lot and, it was tough. Um, we had three floods, 2016, 2017, and then 2019. And we moved in 2019 and I am so happy to be up here where we have problems with drought. we're putting in here.
Glen Merzer: Where are you now?
Tommy Sonnen: About one hour from the Austin airport, real close to interstate 10, just past Schellingberg in a little small town near Welder. We're about five miles from anything. Okay. Very remote. Very remote. It's great.
Glen Merzer: Okay. So, you said before that there was one downside, you lost a lot of money or potential money in this transition to the sanctuary. The positive side is your health improved dramatically from becoming a vegan?
Tommy Sonnen: I think it did.
Glen Merzer: The other thing is you said you met a lot of great people. So tell me about that transformation.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, before I was even vegan, Renee started getting a board of directors. Kip Andersen, unbeknownst to me, told her how to do the GoFundMe to buy my cows. Kip Anderse n is the filmmaker who made cow -spiracy. Yeah. And then What the Hell and Sea -spiracy and then Christ -spiracy.
He's been, he's just been wonderful. And he was at the May 2nd event down there and I met him and got to talking with him. And I got to talking with a lot of other vegans that had helped Renee in the early days. And, you know, I couldn't deny the statistics on the health. I couldn't deny the fact that animal agriculture is ruining this world terribly. I mean, you cannot grow enough cows on this planet earth to keep it a nice, beautiful earth with all the wildlife that inhabit it.
Glen Merzer: Apparently 1 .5 billion cows is a little too many for this planet.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, yeah, we need to make room for the elephants and the, you know, all the native wildlife. And because that's what keeps her anyway. I bought in on health. I bought in on environmental and I never liked taking my animals to the cell barn. That was the worst part of being a rancher, know, other than watching them die if they had a illness or whatever, dropping them off at the cell barn. They would be looking at me with their eyes about twice as big as they normally were because They didn't know anybody there that was slapping tags on them or anything, checking them in. They only knew me and they had had a really good life for, you know, six, 12 months, 14 months, however old they were. And they're looking at me because they don't understand what's going on.
Glen Merzer: You sense that they felt betrayed?
Tommy Sonnen: Yes. I'm still haunted to it to the day, you know, because I'm on the other side of the fence now. I can live my life now as a compassionate vegan. I don't need to go killing animals. I don't need to go to the grocery store and buy any of the packages anymore. You know, I don't, you know, I still have friends that are so -called normal people, you know, that still eat meat and whatever, because I'm not like Renee. I'm not, you know, like in their face about it, but they, wait for them to ask me questions and they give me a hard time a lot of times, but I've actually, people have looked at me as an example. A lot of times from the health angle, sometimes from the environmental angle. If you've got your statistics right and you can tell people what's happening on this earth and they may not believe it, but if they go do a little research, they start realizing that I'm right. In fact, to be a good cattle rancher these days, you don't need to know that much about cows. What you need to know is how to grow grass. And if you can grow grass well, you can be a big rancher or a good rancher. But to grow grass, you have to use chemicals to kill all the broadleaves and berry vines, all the natural stuff. And if you overpopulate your cows on a piece of property, like a lot of people that are trying to make money, you run it down terribly.
Glen Merzer: We need the land.
Tommy Sonnen: Right. Yeah. We need that carbon and we need to store that carbon and a modern cattle ranch doesn't collect a lot of carbon.
Glen Merzer: There are some proponents of animal agriculture who want us to believe that the cow manure is magical and multiplies carbon, but it's not quite the case, is
Tommy Sonnen: That would be the humane aspect. Grow humane and, you know, use all your cow me and their fertilizer and whatever. And basically if everybody goes that route, they're not going to be able to supply the beef to the world like they are today because range cattle, takes a lot of acres and, and, and actually people that go to a grocery store and buy beef won't like the taste of grass -fed beef because most people in America are addicted to beef that has been run through a feedlot and given six months of grain. And that's what most of the ranchers in Texas are. They're cow -calf operations. I take my cows back then. I would take them to the cell barn. would be bought by the middleman. They'd be shipped to a feedlot. They'd be put on all this grain and steroids and antibiotics and everything for -
Glen Merzer: Fatten up for six months or so.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah, and that's the middleman. And the middleman makes their money. And basically, most of these big feedlot operations are running on aquifers in like the Panhandle of Texas. And those aquifers go down every They're not going to be able to, you know, sustain this operation. What people don't realize is they're going to go plant -based somewhat, whether they want to or not, because the world cannot keep producing beef the way they're doing now and have any wild land left. Right.
Glen Merzer: Now, have you lost a lot of friends who used to be your friends in the cattle business?
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah, in fact, my best friend and my partner, we had a hay business together. I mean, we were like brothers. When I went vegan, he disowned me. had to split up our...
Glen Merzer: without using his name, tell me how that went down. What did he say to you?
Tommy Sonnen: He said, Tom, we need to split up our hay equipment. I said, why? I don't want any part of anything that has vegan attached to it. And, he didn't, I'd see him, you know, I mean, he had two small ranches and I had the one ranch and we, know, he'd come over and work on mine. I'd work on his. had other friends that we worked on each other. like I said, I worked at Dow with a friend that, was the president of the Brazoria County Cattlemen's Association. And, you know, yeah, I lost a lot of friends. And I've gained a lot of friends and I lost a lot of friends. It's been, but you got to, you know, you got to do what you feel right in life. And right now I never had kids, me and Renee never had any kids. And our legacy, when we leave this earth, like the house goes to the sanctuary, you And our legacy will be Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. And we've got cows here that hopefully will, unless I'm in my hundreds, will probably live longer than me. And we've got some young ones out here that are going to live a long time.
Glen Merzer: Have you been part of Renee's efforts to help other animal farmers transition to being plant farmers?
Tommy Sonnen: Yes. And you know, it's, it's, more, it's hard because the government has all the subsidies stacked against you. And, I'm not saying it can't be done. but yeah, we, we've got a network of people that, that want to transition, animal agriculture people into plant agriculture, but we, we, we don't have a you know, like a paint by numbers way to do it. put a, there's been a lot of money put into converting over people and it hasn't been magical. there's several other people in the United States. Renee started this really before anybody else did. And I told her she was crazy. I said, every time she does anything, tell her, no, that you can't do that. And, She proves me wrong and she's pretty incredible person. But we want to, but it's my philosophy that what we need right now is we need the government to quit spending so much money, especially on animal agriculture amongst other things, because our, our, you know, our basic budget at home, we double it every year when we don't have the money. And, you know, they're still supporting dairy and buying cheese to keep people in, you know, in business. And the same way, every time there's a drought here in Texas, in our particular county, the ranchers, the ranchers will sell half their cows and then the USDA will give them money to buy them back next year. And there's a crazy amount of subsidies that go into those states that people buy at the grocery store. And to me, the day you can pull into a Burger King and have a choice of buying a plant -based meal for 60%, maybe 70 % of the cost of real meat is the day it's going to take off because people in the United States will vote with their dollars. And a lot of people are so busy, you know, taking the kids soccer practice, working, you know, paying the bills. They don't have time to do the kind of research, you know, they're just normal people, but you let them find out that they can shrink their grocery bill by a lot and they will do it.
Glen Merzer: Well, this government entity, the USDA does everything it can to support animal farmers, that's the same government entity that gives us our nutritional recommendations.
Tommy Sonnen: Right?
Glen Merzer: You the what they used to call the food pyramid, and now they call the food plate and all their nonsense. And it's always they've even got dairy as its own food group. Like you must have dairy.
Exactly.
Glen Merzer: If you look at how many calories per day of dairy they recommend, you know, it's practically people living off dairy.
Tommy Sonnen: I agree. The food from pyramid is just atrocious.
Glen Merzer: Yeah. Now, when you were young, did you ever know any vegetarians or vegans?
Tommy Sonnen: No.
Glen Merzer: Do remember the first one you ever met?
Tommy Sonnen: I don't, but I thought they were all from California or the East coast and crazy.
Glen Merzer: So, do you remember the moment when you said to yourself, maybe I could go vegan?
Tommy Sonnen: You know, I did it as a spur of the moment. was still, like I said, I was still on ice cream and cheese. Right. No meat, no meat from January 2015 till May 2nd. I'm at the festival. Follow Your Heart was sponsoring us with a lot of cheese and So Delicious brought in their coconut ice cream.
Glen Merzer: All right. So these are vegan cheeses and ice cream are great
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah. And so I had just unbelievable people around me that day. remember Joyce, a lady that's been supporting us ever since became vegan that day. And I said, she says, I'm vegan. I said, count me in. I'm vegan too. Wow. And I've never looked back and the ice cream has gotten better. I love the cashew nut ice cream. I'm not a health food vegan, but I try to be healthy. I try to limit my comfort foods, but I love them.
Glen Merzer: Well, what you got to watch out for, Tommy, is the coconut oil that they put in a lot of these packaged vegan foods. Because that coconut oil, you look at how much saturated fat it has, it competes with eating animals. So you got to watch
Tommy Sonnen: Absolutely.
Glen Merzer: What kinds of health changes have you had? You said before you lost 45 pounds. that the limit?
Tommy Sonnen: I gained back about 10 and it equalized right there. I run about 210 to 215 now and I'm six foot tall and I'm 66 years old now, fixing to turn And I can do some pretty amazing work. In fact, I go metal detecting for like on three day hunts with some of my friends that are younger than me that, you know, they can't keep up with me.
Glen Merzer: Yeah, I saw before in your home behind you the metal detecting equipment. How long have you been in the metal? How long has metal detecting been a hobby for you?
Tommy Sonnen: Well, my dad was in Vietnam and I talkedwhen I was 10 years old and I talked my mother into taking me to Houston and we had a little TV guide that had an ad in it back in 1968 and she took me to Houston and I had some of the money and she helped me out. I bought a metal detector and been metal detecting ever since.
Glen Merzer: So what are some of the great things you've detect?
Tommy Sonnen: I found gold, found silver, I found old coins, old buttons, historical stuff, you name it. And I've got quite a collection of very unique stuff. I love Texas history and I've found some. I've got some Mexican artifacts from where, you know, Santa Ana was camped out. I just love, you know, when I was, you know, a non I used to go hunting and looking for arrowheads. In fact, when I was on the deer lease back in the old days, everybody give me a hard time. go, you're not going to shoot no deer looking at the ground. Cause I was always looking for arrowheads and I still, you know, I tell everybody, I still hunt. I just don't hunt animals. I look for arrowheads and I look for historical objects. And sometimes I'll go to the beach and just look jewelry and whatnot. But I'm a long way from the beach now.
Glen Merzer: So yeah, I would think so.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah.
Glen Merzer: Um, so, uh, you get a lot of exercise, I guess, when you go, uh, using your metal detector, a lot of walking involved.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah. My heart rate runs about 45 real low. And it's, uh, it's not because I'm unhealthy. It's because I'm, um, have the capability of being athletic. And I can handle a lot. You know, of course, my dad died of heart attack when he was 62. So I always, you know, when the engine starts revving up too high, I take a break.
Glen Merzer: Yeah. My heart rate is a little lower than average too. And I think that that's something connected to the vegan diet. I think it's actually healthier when your heart rate is a little I mean, if you got a certain number of beats that you're going to have in your lifetime, you might as well have a few less each day.
Tommy Sonnen: Absolutely. like that viewpoint.
Glen Merzer: So you must still have some friends, I'm sure who are meat eaters, right? I do. lot of family. together with them and have a meal together?
Tommy Sonnen: I do. And not right here in this area, but when I go some of these big hunts and stuff, metal detecting hands. and they always respect me, know, like, Tommy, can you eat here? Can you hear? And, and I always, you know, encourage them to ask questions because, I really have some good points on the health side and, they don't eat so well. And, it shows sometimes.
Glen Merzer: Have you convinced any friends to go vegan?
Tommy Sonnen: None that were in my past before I went vegan, but a lot of people that I meet now at the sanctuary, I have convinced a lot of people to go vegan. Like for instance, today we had four people come on a tour. The two ladies were vegan and their boyfriend and husbands were not. And they were like me, they eat vegan around the house, but when they go to work, they don't.
And a lot of people that come like that, when I take them for a tour and I show them the chickens, the big 15 pound chickens that are ready to butcher at 65 days. And I tell them that if you eat chicken, you're actually eating a baby chick. And, and do you realize if you eat that chicken without all the preparation that Tyson does, you want to be probably even be able to stomach it. They prepare that and it's not natural food. And by the time we get through all of them, all the animals, the cows, the pigs, the goats, you know, I've had a lot of people that got attached to one animal in particular. And then they come back the next year and they go, yeah, I've been vegan for almost a year now because I met Leo the sheep. And every time I go out at lunch with the guys and I'd eat, I'd get physically sick later thinking about Leo. I don't know what it was, but yeah, I've had a lot of that. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: Well, I think it may be true that when people go vegan for the animals, it really sticks and they, they, you know, they just can't emotionally go back to eating, eating meat.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, it really works at a sanctuary. Sanctuary is really hard to keep financially intact because the older animals require so much money and everything. They're just like people as they get older, they require more attention. And we have some really big bills and whatnot. But when people see the animals, so happy. And the fact that there are just like people, they all have their own, quirks and their own little clicks and, some of them like blueberries and some of them don't. And some of them just want the apples and carrots. And you know, they, they realize that the animals all have personalities. They, none of them forget their mothers and their fathers and their little groups, family groups. And, anyway, Yeah, we have a really high success rate of converting people over here without telling them anything bad.
Glen Merzer: So you wouldn't do anything different, right?
Tommy Sonnen: No.
Glen Merzer: terms of starting the sanctuary?
Tommy Sonnen: No, yeah, I would do something different. I wouldn't create a craziness about no, I'm going to get divorced. I'm going to sell the cows. I'm getting out of here. just simply not knowing what I know now. I wish I had just said, yeah, Renee, that's a good idea. Let's start a vegan farm animal sanctuary. I'm going to quit eating meat and I'm going to go vegan right now. Yeah. Well, it did not work that way. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: That would have been asking a lot of you given your whole background.
Tommy Sonnen: But, you know, statistically speaking, I just couldn't find a reason not to be vegan. And I was already in a situation that I was in a very unique situation. And, you know, you live longer, you live better and you don't have to kill animals. You don't have to be responsible for killing animals. And, you know, we're just raping the ocean death and You don't need the fish. They, you know, the fish that they catch now and sell are mostly what was called trash fish back in the sixties, but they've already got all the fish, you know, species that they were getting back then. It's, they go from one species to the next.
Glen Merzer: Well, there must've been a moment when you said to yourself, you know what? Maybe my crazy wife is actually sane.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah. Well, I don't know if I go that far. She's, she's a, she's a, a crazy genius. yeah, I mean, but you know, I'm the one that, is the doubter. I never believe, you know, like, we get, she's gone to the USDA and we, we work with the USDA now, but, and I told her those are the enemy. Renee, you can't go to the USDX. Well, come to find out if you're, you have cows and you're a 501C3 and other sanctuaries are watching this, you better go talk to your USDA because there you will fit into a program that will help you.
Glen Merzer: Really? The USDA help a sanctuary?
Tommy Sonnen: If you're a 501C3 and you have cows, that's the only program that we have fit into.
Glen Merzer: Okay. So how did they help you?
Tommy Sonnen: Well, I told her she was crazy for even going up there. I said, that's going to put us on the bulls eye on them. They're going to know we're here now. But we go in there talking to them and you know, we had a drought out here and they said, well, you have cows because we told them instantly we're vegan. We, don't sell our cows. They're there for life. And they, Renee said, we're a 501 C3. Oh, you're a 501 C3. And the lady's through, you know, regulations. And she says, you have cows and you're a 501 C3. Yes. We have a program that you will fit into. And at that, at that time, uh, it was just, uh, reimbursing us for some feed costs that we shipped in. During a drought, if you ship in over, uh, think 30 miles for your feed and we were getting hay from like 200 miles away and they helped us out on transportation costs.
Glen Merzer: that is the nicest thing I've ever heard about the USDA.
Tommy Sonnen: Well, thing is Glen, the government is bloated and the people that are giving away all this tax money, uh, are going to give it to somebody.
Glen Merzer: Right.
Tommy Sonnen: and if a vegan comes in there that fits into the category, they can't deny it. All right. And so other, other sanctuaries that hear this, you might want to go talk to them. There may be other programs. I asked about, you know, we're putting in an irrigation system, because of the drought prone area we're And I asked, do you have anything? when they told us and they were very nice to us, they, because they got to give away all this money, know, and, to the ranchers and apparently they give away a lot of money. But anyway, they will help you out with an irrigation system. If you had an irrigation system for two years and you needed to upgrade it and you had cows. and you were a 501c3. We didn't have it, so we didn't get any help. But it's crazy, and I encourage vegan farm animal sanctuaries to explore the possible opportunities, because if you don't get it, animal ag is.
Glen Merzer: Yeah, and animal ag is getting 99 .9 % of the money, I'm sure.
Tommy Sonnen: And Renee is actually on I can't recall the acronym, but she's in a group that lobbies in Washington for more money to convert people to plant -based farms. And some of those would be to convert from animal ag to plant -based, but they're just lobbying to get more money from the government to start plant -based businesses. And, you know, they're very biased because, you know, we have one lobbyist maybe, and they have what 500. Right. And the 500 have millions that come from all these giant corporations. Because like Monsana, know, they're corn.
Glen Merzer: Well, I don't think 500 to one odds really is very daunting for Renee. so I would just, let the bureaucrats in Washington know that fighting Renee is not a very good strategy. I just want to listen to Tommy and go along.
Tommy Sonnen: I don't know. We, we have a long way to go, but we're getting there. You know, I mean, this time when I started the vegan journey, you could not go into, a grocery store and get. Very much vegan stuff. There was a little, but now you can go in there and you, you're just like, wow, I've got to read the labels and see how healthy this is. I got to try this. I got to try this. And, uh, Renee is basically, uh, all fruit now. Yeah.
Glen Merzer: All fruit.
Tommy Sonnen: She's becoming a fruitarian. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Wow. I think in the last 30 days, she's eaten about 30 watermelons.
Glen Merzer: my goodness.
Tommy Sonnen: We go straight to the watermelon farm and load up the truck. All right. I couldn't do that all fruit.
Glen Merzer: I don't know if that's, if that's best. I love my potatoes.
Tommy Sonnen: Yeah. I grow a lot of potatoes. I've got a little vegan farm here and, that's one of my main things every year. grow some potatoes.
Glen Merzer: Yeah, I think it's good for the human body to have some starch -based foods, vegetables, whole grains, but certainly fruits are healthy. Tommy, so delighted to have you on the vegan team.
Tommy Sonnen: I'm glad to be here.
Glen Merzer: And I'm delighted that Renee converted. So people who want to help can go where?
Tommy Sonnen: To rowdigirlsanctuary .org.
Glen Merzer: Is that the website?
Tommy Sonnen: Yes, it is.
Glen Merzer: So folks out there, please go to rowdigirlsanctuary .org and see what you could do to help. Tommy, thank you for joining us and we'll see you soon.
Tommy Sonnen: Thanks for having me. I appreciate
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