As described by Vickie, one of the founding trustees of Woodlands Animal Sanctuary “the fun never stops here”! At the beginning of the month Vickie took delivery of an injured baby Tawny owl from Rufford Veterinary Group, who we think had hit electricity cables and badly burned her wing, but had not broken it. The injury was covered in fly eggs which required urgent attention to prevent maggots hatching and causing further damage by eating the poor baby owl alive from the inside out. Once again Horus Birds of Prey, who you will be familiar with if you have been to any of our open days, came to the rescue by providing nutritious food for this baby bird – to help her build her strength and aid healing so that when she is healthy enough she can be released back into the wild.

Continuing on the bird theme, whilst enjoying the evening sunshine in the garden which backs onto the sanctuaries bird field, Vickie and her family saw a lone Canada goose who appeared to have an injured leg. As a wild animal this bird was not interested in human contact and so they were unable to get close enough to conduct a thorough inspection of the bird. In order to minimise stress, they decided to leave it be for the night and see what the morning brought. The morning in fact brought the goose chilling out on the pond with all our other resident birds – looking quite at home! It would indeed seem that animals themselves, as well as humans, see Woodlands Animal Sanctuary as a safe haven for them.

On a fluffier note, we have also welcomed several litters of baby guinea pigs or pups into our shelter. This mixed group of 13 guinea pigs went to another rescue initially, but due to the numbers they got in touch with us to see if we had space to take any of them. Subsequently we saw lots of cute and fluffy piggies running around our shelter pens and so it was no wonder our animal care assistants started to spend more time over there! This group of guinea pigs was living in a loving home, but due to inaccurate sexing of them and them not being neutered, the females in this group had either had babies or were pregnant.

Guinea Pigs generally have between 1 and 4 pups per litter but can be up to 7 – this can mean that with a group this size, numbers can very quickly get out of hand. This is why we will only ever rehome animals who have been spayed or neutered (providing they are old enough) and will insist on any animals who are rehomed too young to have been neutered that they are done as soon as is practical. In these situations, the rehoming pack you leave with will have a voucher for a considerable amount of money off this operation for your new pet. Woodlands Animal Sanctuary are firm believers of controlled and responsible breeding only - to help to reduce the suffering of animals through unwanted pregnancies.

If you are in a position to and would like to help us continue this work please follow the link http://woodlandsanimalsanctuary.org.uk/donate to donate towards the very worthwhile cause. It really it true, while helping one animal may not make a difference to the world – it will make the world of difference to that one animal, and you can be a part of it. Woodlands Animal Sanctuary could not continue its work if it wasn’t for the very generous support of the great British general public and for this the whole team at the Sanctuary is always grateful.

If you haven’t yet seen the wonderful work that goes on there for yourself yet – then put Sunday 25th June in your diary. Woodlands Animal Sanctuary are hosting their first Wild Western open day, where you can meet all the animals, learn more about the work they do as well as enjoy a bucking bronco, gold hunt and shooting games. To get up to date information about the goings on at Woodlands please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.