Donations - how you can help
It quite simply costs a lot to feed, house and care for the rescued animals here. We do not charge to intake any animal, and the nominal re-homing fees help, but do not cover costs. We run the re-homing farm from one income, and are great believers in recycling! Besides gifts of money, we welcome donations of any unwanted feed, building materials, or bedding etc. Those unwanted items you may have lying about could be put to fantastic use here for the animals. Here are a few suggestions;
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Hay & Straw
Hay is always needed for an extra food source. Even broken bales help feed an animal, and straw is great bedding material. We are constantly having to buy these items to keep in extra feed and bedding for the stalls and pens. If you have spare hay lying about, or some straw we will happily take it off your hands and put it to good use for the animals.
Wire & Fencing
Leftover bits of wire mesh, chicken mesh, wire fencing of any gauge is always needed. We make our own coops here and smaller cages for critters. Always in demand and it is surprising how often leftover cuts are thrown away. Even a couple of feet of leftover wire could become a new cage front, or door or patch a gap. Longer lengths of fencing could help create new pens, and thereby help us take in more animals.
Buckets
You would not believe how many buckets we go through! We use them for everything, for food, water, and just about every general purpose you can think of. Eventually through wear and tear they can split and leak. Any spare buckets, or old big paint pots that could double up as buckets would be most helpful around the farm.
Tea chests & packing crates
These old packing crates, or chests are great for duck houses, nest boxes, or shelters from the rain for outside animals. We have quite a few dotted around the place and often find our free range hens nesting in them too! Any spare old packaging chests like this would be very useful to smaller animals.
Dropped fruit
Got a few fruit trees? Dropsies from the tree would make great treats for many animals here at the farm. Our pigs love citrus fruit, and apples are great for chickens, guineas, rabbits and goats. Other veggies too are most welcome. So next time you bag up any unwanted fruit and veggies, hop in the car and come feed the animals! Children are welcome too! Phone in advance to make sure we are here, and you can bring your children to feed and pet the animals. They will love you for it!
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Wood Shavings
We go through heaps of this for our chicken coops, nest boxes, the critter cages etc. It is such good bedding material and expensive to buy. Any leftover bags of shavings are always so useful and would help enormously with keeping costs down.
Treated Ply
When making our own coops, shelters and cages, this stuff is great and lightweight. From big sheets to small offcuts, we are constantly using up a lot of ply. It recycles well, so doesn't matter if its old reclaimed ply, we can still use it to help make shelters & cages for the animals.
Leads & Collars
It is surprising how many leads and collars we use. For walking rehomed pets to visitors cars, for training and tethering, we are always grateful for old collars and leads we can use. Through age, and use they eventually break, or split and we gratefully welcome those old collars your pet cat or dog may have outgrown.
Old bowls
Old china bowls/dishes or old glass ashtrays are great for holding water and heavy enough not to tip for smaller animals. It doesn't matter if they are chipped or old, bowls are always useful to hold food, salads, or water for the smaller animals in our care. The young and the sick are often put into separate cages and brought to the house for extra warmth in our spare room. Having bowls to hand is great for new born babies who haven't yet figured out how to use a water feeder, or those too weak to reach up for one. So before you throw away that old china dish that got chipped, it would serve a great purpose here at the rescue farm.
Old roofing iron
Roofing iron, corrugated tin, whatever type, its great to recycle and make new roofing for shelters, A frame cages, and goat shelters. A lick of paint and it's good as new. It doesn't matter the size or length, this is such a handy building material and we can recycle left over bits, or even rusty pieces into something new to help give the animals shelter.
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