Exploring The Urban Rescue Ranch
How an animal rescuer/rehabilitator turned into the internet’s most beloved uncle.
It’s perfectly normal to have that feeling of burnout from work, or facing senioritis when in school, and for most, dealing with it involves spending time by yourself, watching something new on Netflix or Hulu, or binging your favorite show for the fifth time. For Ben Christie, senioritis caused him to rehabilitate wildlife and start a whole new chapter of his life taking care of injured animals.
The Urban Rescue Dorm
Of course there were a few steps between helping one pigeon/raising a few chickens and worldwide social media success, so let’s start at the very beginning. Ben has always had a passion for wildlife rehabilitation and helping injured animals, and his story of how he got started is fascinating to say the least.
What first got you interested in rescuing animals?
“Senior year at Baylor [University] in Waco — I knew where I was going to end up working afterwards, but you know how some people get ‘senioritis?’ — that kinda kicked in, and for me that manifested in me and my roommates getting a bunch of chicks and ducklings from Tractor Supply. My one roommate had a dog that kept pooping in my closet […] and I told him I could literally get a whole flock of birds and they would all poop less than your dog.”
“I got permission to use this old shed with power running to it as a coop, and I knew nothing about taking care of chicks, but I just went ahead and started doing it. Pretty soon afterwards they grew up and I started selling the eggs on campus. We would walk around with the chickens on campus because we literally lived right next to it. Eventually people just started seeing me as the bird guy, and they would bring me the animals that had either fallen from nests, or any injured squirrels or anything like that.”
“What I found out, was that with pigeons and some similar animals, you don’t need a wildlife rehabilitation permit to take care of them. This one little pigeon that fell out of the nest, I raised it, and this was the defining moment for me — I thought, ‘how hard could it be?’ I looked up how to syringe feed them, what temperature to keep them, and I kept him with our chickens and fed him 3 times a day. This pigeon would follow me around campus; he would wait for me outside until after class, and he would just fly back to me! It was the craziest thing.”
“As time went by, I did realize that I should get a permit because I wanted to do all of that legally with racoons and everything else. I majored in sales, ya know, and I planned on working at Oracle […] but when I moved to Austin, I made sure my roommate and I found a place with a yard so I could keep doing this.”
From Offline to Social Media Fame
Ben and I discuss his first introduction to social media and how his offline status changed to online with a single, simple upload.
When did you first join social media and what did you think of it when first joining?
“I had this plan — I remember sitting in my cubicle at Oracle — it wasn’t bad, but it drains you, and I realized I needed to do something I was passionate about. My friends told me about what TikTok was, and I knew about the memes at the time […] but I saw nobody was doing animal or farming stuff. I saw that wasn’t a thing on TikTok, and for the last 3 years I just kept thinking, ‘man, if we just recorded half the stuff we did.’”
“So I started uploading some of the Snapchats I saved that I would send friends of me sitting in the tub with some feral hogs washing the fleas off them — and that got a million views out of nowhere. At that point, it was just very blessed, ya know? I was just making some funny skits with friends, and it wasn’t really until this year around April that the YouTube started taking off.”
In your eyes, why do you think the Urban Rescue Ranch became such a big hit online?
“I think now there’s a lot of animal and rescue content out there, but I don’t think people do it in a fun and educational way for younger folks. Having said that, there’s Coyote Peterson, there’s Steve Erwin, but that’s high production quality. I really think there’s something to be said about crappy production quality [laughs] I haven’t filmed on anything besides my iPhone. I think there’s a certain charm to that which people like.”
“I also think we were really lucky; I think God blessed us a lot, and we were right there at the early stage of TikTok where it was either people who were lip syncing or people who were making fun of the people lip syncing.”
The Residents of the Urban Rescue Ranch
What kind of animals were you expecting to take in at first, and what would you say you were least expecting to take in and take care of?
“We had gotten this little ostrich with curled toes. My friend and I were on Craigslist because we were really bored, and we saw this person giving this ostrich away, so I looked up some primary research literature on how vets take care of it. The first thing that he did was swallow a lighter, so I grabbed his neck and massaged the lighter out of his throat. I was like, ‘okay I need to do a lot more research on these guys.”
“There’s huge farms here [in Texas] where people will farm and hunt kangaroos, ostriches, zebras, antelopes […] and I think it’s really silly why you would pay 8,000 to get this kangaroo hunting experience in Texas [laughs], right? But I love this animal sanctuary concept and I think it could be applied to these livestock animals that are exotic that Texas considers livestock.”
If you had to name your top 5 animals at the Urban Rescue Ranch, who would it be?
We talked about some of his favorite animals and memories from the Urban Rescue Ranch, as well as some of the obstacles he’s encountered and the complications of wildlife rehab.
“It changes from time to time. But ya know, Kevin, Poggers, Doorknob — our little kangaroo from a meat farm, […] we got Poppy who’s the little possum — wildlife is different from domestic animals, but wildlife rehab — it’s funny, I can do surgery on a kangaroo if I wanted to without any permits here, but I can’t bottle-feed a baby possum without it.”
“Fifth […] it’s hard to pick favorites, and I try to rehome them, ya know? But Vinny though — I’ll choose Vinny, though it used to be Julia. We went and picked 20 rabbits that used to be hoarded, and they were chewing on each others ears because they didn’t have anything else to chew on. People didn’t want her, but we took her in.”
Moving Forward
Ben discussed his future plans for YouTube, the Urban Rescue Ranch, and his new property out in Waco, Texas.
How’s the move to Waco going?
“We are getting sheet rock put up literally right now. Over the summer we had a long stalled productivity, where friends, volunteers, and contractors didn’t come out, and COVID didn’t help with that. But now it’s kinda snowballed into this big thing.”
“The first two or three months of YouTube growth, I had to post every day, and I learned from TikTok that when a wave comes, you’ve got to ride it. The waves come and go with viral videos, and honestly it’s kind of nice to not have those waves so you can take some time off. But […] I think by the end of October I’ll be preparing to move there, and the place in Austin will be done around Winter or Spring.”
Animal Rehabilitation Advice with Uncle Ben
What would you say to others looking to get involved in something similar?
“You’ve got to be willing to put in the most work — more than any volunteers or friends, because whether it’s responding to angry emails from people, or literally bottle feeding a baby deer, there’s a lot to do and there’s no rest days, you need to have a great farm sitter, […] it’s not too much, but it’s a big time commitment.”
“There’s a million ways to make a buck, but I’ve showed that even hatching the rhea eggs isn’t super lucrative, but you have to have some kind of income to supplement it as well. I don’t think this would be possible without people sponsoring us, and YouTube, […] and it’s definitely not cheap to take care of all of the animals!”
Special thanks and shoutout to Ben for working with me on this and getting back to me so soon. If you want to learn more about the Urban Rescue Ranch, you can check out its website here or go to Ben’s YouTube channel here where you can see some of the residents of the Urban Rescue Ranch and learn about sustainable practices, interesting facts about animals, or just enjoy some amazingly fascinating stuff!
