Author Archive: hallswood

Hogs hogging all the food :)

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It is almost hard to see that the bald ball in the picture is a hedgehog but it is. He is one of around 200 hogs currently being cared for at the main site.
He was brought to us with really bad mites, poor little thing, but is now being treated and doing really well.

The two tiny hogs are babies overwintering with us - too tiny to survive hibernation.

Every day we go through 45 tins of cat food to feed these little monsters. Where we would normally ask you to maybe buy a tin or two, now we feel it would be bad to encourage you guys to go outside unless necessary. So instead we have placed an order for £468 worth of tins from Aldi. At just 39 pence per tin, it is a really good price 🙂

Could you sponsor a tin or 2? If so, PayPal to [email protected] or go to www.hallswood.co.uk and click the PayPal button there to send a donation (you can use a card there).

Help us feed these little dudes for another month 🙂

xxMaria

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Wild about fridays 8/1/21

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Happy New Year everyone!
The last year has been an extraordinary period of extremes, the shocking threat of the pandemic and a heartening fresh sense of community that has come about.
Many people have discovered a new love of wildlife, nature and gardening, and at least the lockdown provided our planet with a little break from our antics. The wildlife seemed to appreciate it, although there were record numbers of admissions to the sanctuary! Many of us have had the chance to be more observant of nature than there is often an opportunity to be. And most of us have been around our homes a little/lot more than any other year in memory! I think we are all glad to see the back of 2020, although who knows what 2021 has in store for us?!
Looking at the positives, we have reconnected with the natural world and its little occupants in a way that has brought us joy and a sense of well-being. The small things have such a heightened sense of importance that was maybe missing before; the sight of a robin on a feeder, hedgehog poop in your garden, finding a frog, geese in flight. It was all there before, but the hectic pace of life that we follow rarely gives us breathing space to stop and look and listen.

And with regard to Hallswood, our community spirit has been so strong, with fantastic support in these most challenging of times, so for every £1 donated, each bottle of bleach or disinfectant sent in from the Amazon wish list, every crisp packet saved for our recycling team, for each used Jiffy bag kept for our eBay team, and every purchase from our shops, we thank you.

I hear a rumor that the white stuff might be heading our way soon.... there’s always a lot more threat than actual event, so it will be interesting to see if we do get any! With the schools closed, at least the children will be able to get out into it!

For the garden, it’s business as usual for the winter feeding! We have had a glorious invasion here of long-tailed tits! They are so very beautiful, descending on the fat balls in some numbers, seven at the last count, which is a wonderful sight. The blue tits, coal tits and great tits are focussing on the peanut feeders, and the cheeky starlings will dive onto any and every feeder that they can get to! We have extra food out now, suet block feeders as well as niger seed, and extra bird drinkers too. The blackbirds clear up any spillage from underneath the feeders and the robin supervises from his favored perch on the wheelbarrow nearby.

I saw a very unusual bird at the peanut feeder this weekend, a long slim body in shades of soft milky brown with a cap that had a hint of raspberry pink to it. I described it in detail to the other half who cheerfully declared, after consulting his bird book, that I was making it up. Well.... I beg to differ! Feeling rather huffy about it, I went through the book and after some page flicking, found that the exact match was a female blackcap. I hadn't seen one before, but as I triumphantly pointed out what I had seen, he decided, “oh yes, I wondered if it might be that”.........

xHeather

PayPal.me/Hallswood

Happy caturrrday from Ginger George!

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Ginger George was a feral farm cat a few miles away from the sanctuary.
The farm owner had him trapped, neutered and chipped. It was felt he was too wild to tame.
In March last year, he appeared in a garden in Horsford about 5 miles from his “home”.
He made himself a nest in a Laurel tree. He was fed there by one of our fosterers

Sandra Lumbard who could get nowhere near him. In October it was decided to set a trap to try and get him safe for the winter.

We had success and Sandra began to weave her magic on him. To begin was scared but soon started to become affectionate with Sandra. About the same time, we posted about a ginger girl to be rehomed and we had a couple of responses. She was a cat with a few behavioral issues and two potential adopters came forward. The first one met Ella and agreed to rehome her.
This left us with Lesley who had wanted to rehome Ella. We offered her Ginger George but explained his past history and that he may not settle to an indoor life having lived as a feral all his life. She agreed to take him on a month's trial basis as all cats that come from Hallswood are offered.
She was prepared to give him time and space to get used to indoor life and her. To begin with, he was quite scared and skittish but with lots of patience, Lesley won him round.

I’ve messaged Lesley several times for updates and just after Christmas, she said he’s a very good natured boy who purrs away and now would be on her lap permanently if he could. He has no desire to go outside. It’s still a work in progress but Lesley is happy to give him all the time he needs to feel completely secure in his first indoor home.

If you would like to help us help more cats like Ginger George please make a donation towards our vet bill. It’s quite large at the moment as you can imagine with our shops closed our income has reduced dramatically.

Our vets are Chapelfield Costessey 01603 743725, just say it's to pay towards Hallswoods account.
Thanks very much
Gemma
Xx
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Too wild to tame :)
Too wild to tame 🙂

Update from our shops

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A happy new year from all of our shops! Here's what the managers had to say 🙂
For more up to date info on our shops in general, please check here

Our shops

"Happy new year from us at 177 Drayton Road!
Click and collect will be available between 10 and 2 Monday- to Saturday (not Thursdays).
I will be accepting donations by appointment ONLY. Phone between 10 and 2 to arrange 01603 927465. I would like to thank all my customers for their continued support and patience with the situation. It's my first year managing a Hallswood shop and it's been a tough one! So thanks again for the support I have received from both customers and colleagues. Hope next year is better. Happy new year! xTeresa"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/hallswooddraytonroad

"Happy new year from us at Suffolk Square!.
Hoping to have our Suffolk square F/B site up & running soon, that way we can carry on trading online & keep in contact with you. Also, we will be accepting donations by appointment, so give us a call on 01603 665752. The last year has been hard on everyone but we have carried on with your support & help. We will continue to care for wildlife 24/7
All this has only been possible because of your support & kindness, so l would like to thank every one of you who has been there for us also none of this is possible without our amazing team of volunteers, who always go the extra mile, so big thanks guys & Happy New Year. xGina"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/hallswoodsuffolksquare

"Happy new year from Magdalen street!
140 Magdalen street has been up and running since July 2019. Since we have been open we have accumulated a large and very welcome band of lovely customers. We missed and worried about them when we were closed but back they came to support Hallswood, a great local Charity. Without them and our steadfast team of volunteers we would not manage to feed all our animals, so please keep up your welcome support. We will not be able to accept donations right now, so sorry about that. Let's all look forward and onward we go to care for and rescue wildlife together. XVal"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/hallswoodmagdalenstreet

Old does not mean not worthy

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Hallswoods belief is that everyone deserves a chance - sometimes that means a warm safe home with us for the rest of an animals or birds life 🙂

Most time that will be at the sanctuary, but sometimes a volunteer or member of staff will help out.

This is a story about Rachael and Raymond 🙂

"My job every day at the sanctuary is to check all the animals as I go round and feed and water them all. One day back in October I went in to feed the racer pigeons. I saw this pigeon sitting on the floor at the back of the aviary. I thought the poor little thing had passed away as Lyz has told me many of the pigeons in there are quite old. I walked up to him to pick him up and he was alive! So I took him in to the hospital and was told to put him on a heat mat to warm him up a bit. He was in the hospital for a few weeks after that. So I said to Lyz I would love to take him home. She said I could! So I called him Raymond. He is very old man and he can't fly or perch very well . But he is happy eating drinking and cooing at my house. Since he has been in mine he walks a lot better than what he did do. He still can't fly but he walks around the living room like he owns it lol."

What bird is your favourite?

I must admit I do love pigeons. They have the most beautiful shiny feathers!

xxMaria

Did you know that many of the pigeons brought to us have canker? You can find the tablets we use for this on our amazon wishlist 🙂

https://amzn.eu/9uE8XXQ

 

Goodbye 2020 – welcome 2021!

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Looking back at 2020 it would be so easy just to concentrate on the bad and the struggles.

Don’t get me wrong, it has been hard! The lockdown meant that not only did we have to close all our shops and cancel our events, but it also meant an increase in animals and birds brought to us! Our best guess is that the combination of less traffic and people spending more time at home gave nature a bit of a breather – there was definitely a baby boom! Never before have we had so many baby birds to care for or so many hedgehogs brought to us!

We estimate that we have lost over £70,000 in sales and £25,000 in cancelled events over the lockdowns – a staggering amount for any business. But imagine losing that and still have most of your costs left! The choice was “simple”: stop taking in animals or continue as normal and Lyz’s instruction was clear. Closing our doors was NOT an option.

I am so extremely proud that we managed to make that happen and it was thanks to you supporters and volunteers that was possible! When we say that we have the best supporters in the world we really mean it!
Donations were made to our PayPal and bank account, cheques were sent in, Penny jars filled.
Pop-up shops, home delivery of jams and not to forget the eBay sales!
Bagged up manure – literally tonnes of it, sold.
And the amazon wish-list. Many thousands of pounds worth of items donated.
And it’s not that you helped us scrape through – you helped us grow!

Wow!

So here we are. 2021.
Right now there is still a lot of un-certainty and we are not quite there yet, but we are getting there.
And we are certain that with your help we will be ok.
Thank you for making what we do possible <3

xMaria

How to help

Our monthly shopping list

 

 

Little x-mas reindeer <3

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Things to gather together:- 

toilet roll tubes, 

brown paint, 

twigs or pipe cleaners for antlers,

black buttons felt or felt pen for eyes,

PVA glue,  

Sticky tape,

something for the nose - little bottle top, scrunched up red paper, red glitter, tiny Pom Pom, felt pen. 

 

Then!!! 

1.  Cut the toilet roll tube in half and paint your choice of reindeer colour. I did brown, but you could mix up different shades.  

2.  Break up your twigs into the right size for your tubes and stick them to the insides of the tubes with sticky tape.  

3.  Put eyes on your reindeer tubes and then the nose. I had some odd bits at the bottom of my craft box so I used a little red bell, a tiny bottle top, and different sized pom-poms that had fallen off another project.  I added a smile too!   

 

It helps if you leave each stage to dry in between because it’s really annoying if you knock your reindeer's nose off because the glue hasn’t set!

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Make a twirly-whirler!

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You will need:- 

some cardboard from the recycling, or a pizza base. 

Paint. 

Decorations. 

A bit of wool or string. 

 

Here we go! 

Draw a spiral shape from the edge of the circle, I imagined a coiled-up snake, then when you reach the centre you need the round off the end of the coil.
Make a small hole in the very centre of the rounded off part in the middle.  Then you need to cut on your spiral markings all the way to the middle.

Paint the whole of the cardboard, I did two shades of bluey-green, one shade on each side. I had to wait for each side to dry before I could do the other one. 

Then decorate one side - I did mine with splodges of different coloured paint and I sprinkled glitter onto the wet paint. (Make sure your glitter is from previous years, like mine is, or buy eco glitter so as not to cause harm to sea life when the glitter finds its way there).
Leave it to dry.  

You can now decorate the second side, I put little dabs of glue and stuck some stars onto it. When it dries, thread your string or wool through the hole in the middle of the circle and hang it up to sparkle!!!  

See where your decorations go, you could do stripes of paint, or stick foil milk bottle tops onto it. Maybe make one in Xmassy colours, or crisp winter colours, have fun!

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