Sanctuary update February 2021

Sanctuary update time!

It is craaaaaazy busy as always and we can’t let the snow slow us down. Spring is around the corner and we know what that means: babies and garden injuries!
We are prepping the hospitals by putting in hot water. This will help saving time as some basic washing up can be done inside the hospitals rather than outside in the washing up area. We are also stocking up and moving storage around. As always, you can find the most urgent needs on our amazon wishlist. https://amzn.eu/9uE8XXQ
Thanks to a generous donation we now have a separate metal shed with the things for our horse field. This means that heavy sacks don’t have to be wheelbarrowed through the entire site, back and forward. Thank you!

Building work is never-ending at the site with old buildings being adapted or repurposed
We have built 4 temporary aviaries suitable for birds of prey with wing injuries that are moving into their second stage of rehab. There is also a new aviary for the crows. The dishwasher is now installed, saving us from handwashing the 100s of old GU jars we use for water and food dishes.
Hog ward 1 has been created to prevent a bottleneck in the 2 current hospitals, allowing hogs to move on in their transition from the necessary heat in the ICU down to release temperatures without overburdening the main Hogspital. This means that we can better cope with a high number of intakes – at one point we had up to 25 hedgehogs per day coming in…. Thanks to your amazing support we also changed over lots of our carriers, meaning that we now have the same size carriers and cages that can be stacked safely, rather than a mishmash.

It’s not just Covid making things extra difficult but bird flu out brakes in the UK meant that DEFRA ordered bird owners to cage all birds. 4 large temporary aviaries have been built to house the usually free-running fowl population of Hallswood.
This means a lot of extra straw! Therefore, we are extra grateful to the customers of Ken’s Corn Stores in Taverham prepaying for bales of straw for us!

A new indoor area has been created for Kevin the pig along with his entourage of cockerels who keep him company. I can see a children’s book here, can’t you? Kevin and his friends at Hallswood 😀

It has now been 7 years since we built our first hospital. 7 years! Repairs have been carried out on the floor and the under-counter storage has been improved. I can see that we will have to rebuild or extend in the next year or two.

Do you remember the emergency pond dig last autumn? When our volunteers dug a brand-new pond in less than 1 week? Well, I am soooo happy to say that the pond is looking great and the fish are thriving.

Future projects for this year are:
1. A new outdoor hutch area for hedgehogs. This is for pre-release.
The new area will be covered to make it easier for volunteers and staff to keep clean and dry.
2. A new fox habitat will be built backing onto the hog area providing an improved environment for the resident foxes.
3. A second fox habitat to be built later in the year along with a Deer habitat in the woodland area.
4. New shelving and storage covers to be fitted in the Hogspital.
5. A new office area will be built by the gate enabling the main hospital to expand into the current office with the treatment area situated at the front, mammals in the middle room, and birds in the back room.

As you can see we are busy busy and it is just thanks to you guys we can do this!
I don’t know if you understand just how amazing this is: that thanks to your support, not only can we survive through a pandemic, but grow!
Wow!

We love you <3
xxMaria

https://hallswood.co.uk/how-to-help/

Shiny Cat and beautiful fashion

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Cat Nash of www.fashionfromvintage.co.uk has, for several years now, had a mutually prosperous working relationship with Hallswood Animal Sanctuary.
Damaged textiles, including tablecloths, duvet covers, pillowcases, doilies, and handkerchiefs from our shops, have been repurposed into stunningly unique pieces of individually designed women’s clothing.
She also helps price jewelry for Hallswood’s shops/website, provides homes for unwanted kittens, sends her husband to judge charity dog shows, and much more besides. Talk about all in 🙂
 
The photos you see here are from our amazing event at the Bishop's garden a few years back. The models some of the beautiful women helping Hallswood.
 
So go have a look at her page.
Help a local, independent business and get a truly unique piece of fashion (with the added bonus of helping us at the same time of course 🙂 )
 
xxMaria
 
PS. Right now she is donating £2.50 per sale from her web-shop - in case you needed some more encouragement 😉

We love local!!

Ken's Corn Stores are long term supporters of the sanctuary and they have been a fantastic support in the last year. They have donated food, installed a donation bin for their customers and allow people to pre order straw and hay for us so we can just collect! How amazing is that 😀
We just received a message from supporter Tracey who has done just that! Thank you again Tracey <3
Even in normal times we use more straw during winter, but with DEFRA restrictions we go through more than normal!

The pictures show the last time we emptied the donation bin at Kens. Isn't that just amazing!

#supportlocalbusiness
#AnimalRescue
#taverhamgardencenter
#kenscornstore

 

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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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Goodbye 2020 – welcome 2021!

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

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