Personal message

It has been a difficult start to Winter here, the wind has begun to bite, and the rain to fall. Whatever the weather, we love what we do and each day we are reminded why by the beautiful and innocent beings under our care. The love and joy they bring to each other, visitors, our supporters all over the world, volunteers and the people that live here and care for them, is enough to cement the idea that these sentient and highly complex beings deserve a life of freedom.

This time of year always takes a toll on our animals. They mostly come from the animal agriculture industry, and because of this have been bred for rapid growth. They have also been fed the unhealthiest mixtures of low-quality grains mixed with antibiotics and quite often, plastic.

These are a few factors that affect the general health of our animals and we have had some urgent cases recently.  Today our vet attended to former pet pig, Bramble, who is limping on one foot; another former pet pig, our old boy Ziggy, who had a huge abscess on one thigh that was impeding his movement, dairy calf Atlas who has a persistent cough, elderly goat Mandy who has mobility issues, 20 day old lamb Betty with chronic diarrhoea and rescued farm piglet Juno who was savaged by dogs.  All patients will respond to medication, therapy and round the clock care, which we are, as always, fully committed to giving them.  Very sadly we also had to euthanaise one of our large white farm pigs, Monty, who has been staggering for a few years but has been unable to get up on his feet this past week  Monty is a victim of selective breeding to make a naturally medium size animal grow as large as possible, as quickly as possible.  In some pigs this leads to an under-developed cerebellum and they always pass away while still quite young, often after developing mobility and balance issues.  Monty was only six but he was loved and had a life of freedom and safety in the few years he was with us.  

Our vets bills cost around R400,000 a year at welfare rates.  A rush of animals needing care hits us hard and we've decided to set up an Emergency Medical Fund which we aim to keep as close as possible at R50,000 so that when we need to respond we can do so without sinking into debt.  Please help us set this up with a donation.   We will be holding on-going events and activities, including merchandising, to maintain our medical fund but we urgently need to set up the first R50,000.

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