Sweet Dreams, Our Darling Fiona

Thank you so much to all of you for your kind messages and thoughts for Fiona. It is with the greatest of sadness that we must inform you that she has now snuggled up peacefully to sleep and passed away. She was warm, cosy, and surrounded by people who loved and cared for her during her time at the sanctuary, telling her how very loved she was. As many of you will know, Fiona had been hospitalised at the vets again as she was still very poorly and not progressing as we had hoped that being back home with us. She was sadly fighting such a tough battle that no amount of medication or veterinary care could treat. She fought so very hard over these last weeks, and we are so grateful to the vets and nurses who have been caring for her and treating her so well while she was hospitalised – and to all of you who very kindly made donations towards her treatment, helping us to make her comfortable. We couldn’t save her, but if there is hope we will always give our animals that chance. The last gift we could grant her was comfort and peace.

We know Fiona was adored by so many of you… so many of you came through our doors and told us that you’d come specially to see her, and last year she was our most sponsored animal - what a lucky girl! How could she not be so loved? To those of us that she chose to trust, she was the most loving, friendly, girl you could wish to meet. Fiona was one of the biggest characters here at the sanctuary, she was so cheeky and always up to mischief; but she was also such a sweet girl who loved attention and cuddles from her keepers, especially Claire her favourite keeper who she formed such a special bond with. She was loved so much by so many people, and we can’t thank you enough for loving her as much as we did. Our keepers are all still distraught but want to thank you all for your kindness and support during this difficult time.

As many of you will know, we took Fiona in after she was seized from a puppy farm in the most awful conditions along with her mother, Sophie. After a hugely successful fundraising campaign, we were able to create an amazing purpose-built enclosure especially for them, with all of the features they had never before had access to in their previous cramped and squalid conditions. Lots of space, a pool to splash about in and wash their food in (an important behaviour for raccoons!), areas to climb, places to hide, space to play, natural soil and plants to root and dig around in, a warm and cosy shelter to sleep in... We tried to think of everything that could possibly want that they had never had before, and they settled right in! Unfortunately, little Sophie was already quite old when she joined us and passed away in 2019; but they both got to experience such happiness in their lives with us after such a hard beginning, and for that, we are so grateful.

Sweet dreams our beautiful girl, once more reunited with Sophie, across the Rainbow Bridge xxx

2021: A Happy Reflection...

As time seems to rush by it’s easy to become so caught up in the here and now that we can sometimes forget what we’ve achieved, so as the year comes to an end, we’re reflecting on our accomplishments over the last twelve months!

It was a shaky start to the year, with us not being able to open when we'd hoped. Many of you fought for us to open our doors, along with the countless other organisations that were impacted by the ruling to remain closed at the time, and after many petitions and letters to MPs, we were finally given the green light! We opened with so many changes; an online booking system, a one-way system, a no feeding/petting rule, to name a few. You wore your masks, you sanitised your hands, you distanced from other families and our staff – you remained so patient with us, and because of this; because you followed these rules, we were allowed to remain open, and we are still here today when many other similar organisations sadly aren’t. We were genuinely scared for a while, and thanks to you, our animals are still safe in their Forever Home.

We’ve said some sad goodbyes to some of our animals, but we’ve also welcomed some new ones. One of our dearest success stories this year was the rescue of little Ollie the Golden Guernsey who we had heard was due to be euthanised within 24 hours if a home could not be found; you rallied together and helped us in under an hour to raise the funds needed to bring him to the sanctuary, and he was with us the very next day! He has since settled in and even fallen in love with Harper the Pygmy Goat! We can’t imagine Brockswood without this cheeky character now.

After years of talking about wanting to help dogs in some way, we finally did it with your help – we built our brand-new Secure Dog Run and we’re over the moon at how successful you and your dogs have made it! We can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet all your waggy friends and we so look forward to seeing them here. Thank you so much for supporting this new venture, we can’t wait to build on this and make it even better for you.

Charlie relaxing after a run!

We hosted our Annual Dog Show this year after having to cancel the year before and you helped us make this the biggest and most successful show we have ever had! We still break out into a smile when we think of that wonderful day – thank you!

We built a brand-new aviary for Jasmine and Raj our peafowl, who needed somewhere to call their own home after they started to outgrow their aviary, which was also really beginning to show its old age. This is our largest aviary to date, and we are so proud of what we have achieved for them. We have plans to completely upgrade and modernise all our aviaries for our rescued birds and with your help, we’ll make this dream a reality!

Jasmine and Raj move in!

Rachel & Pineapple the Sheep

We gained a new team member this year with the addition of Rachel, who joined us as our first full-time Work Placement Coordinator & Animal Keeper! Rachel began volunteering with us when lockdown hit and we needed helping hands more than ever. Like all our amazing volunteers (such as Matt who won the One Voice for Animals Volunteer of the Year Award!) she was eager to learn, worked hard, and fit straight into our wonderful little team. Education is so important in our work and we have been providing work experience at the sanctuary for animal care students for many years now. We’re picking ourselves up following the damage the pandemic has done and going a step further in our education work, and Rachel has been taking charge along with our other team members who are sharing their skills and experience with students and hopefully lots of other people in the future as we branch out our education plans further into the community.

We’ve also been joined by Adina, in another new role here as our Conservation Intern. We’ve always been very passionate about conservation at the sanctuary, and Adina is helping to turn our conservation dreams into reality – we can’t wait to show you some of the things we’re working on together!

These are just some of this year’s achievements, but every day is an achievement to us. Every day our animals have a safe and happy home thanks to your support, and we really couldn’t do this without you! We have so much planned for next year and we’re looking forward to getting started on making some of these plans a reality. We’ve always had big plans for our little sanctuary, and we believe that we can help to touch so many lives for the better. Together, with your support, we can make this happen!

A busy week for our sanctuary Vets!

As a sanctuary, we would be lost without the support of our vets, and today we’d like to highlight the work of our amazing vets at Meadows Farm who have had a busy couple of weeks with us here! They rushed straight out to us when Geraldine the sheep gave us a scare with the first stages of bloat, and has since been seen twice - we’re happy to say that final checkup gave her the all-clear and she was able to go back out with her friends! Following this worrying event, vets Frances & Sophie gave our team a training session on what to do if we have a sheep or goat with bloat again - bloat is very serious and left untreated, the animal will die, so it is critical that we are able to step in to provide this first aid while we’re waiting for the vets to arrive!

Geraldine waiting for the all-clear so that she could be reunited with her pals!

They have also given Ollie the goat a check-up (he’s fine!), as well as Jax and Evangeline the Sheep who we have been a little worried about and now receiving treatment.

We also had a very busy day vaccinating all of our sheep and goats, helping to keep them safe and healthy over the winter - a particularly critical time for many of our older animals here!

Evangeline having a check-up

Auntie having her vaccine.

A dental check-up for Jax.

Roma having his vaccine.

Waiting for their vaccines.

Rachel leading the rams around

Lydia moving Jake's group.

The team at Meadows Farm are always at the end of a phone any time of day if we need them for help or advice, and we know our rescued animals are in the best hands when they need that extra care that we can’t provide.

You can help to support our animals’ veteriary care by making a donation (please let us know that you would like it to be used for this) and helping us to purchase the veterinary medicines and supplies needed to keep our animals healthy and happy, and help to make our poorly animals better!