Bromsgrove Rovers

Fleecehaven News

‘PROM

OTING HUM

AN BEHAVIOUR TOW

ARDS ANIM

ALS BY

PROVIDING CARE, PROTECTION, TREATM

ENT AND SECURITY’

Volume 5, Issue 2

Autumn 2011 On the 19th September, 11 sheep

joined us from the Farm Animal &

Bird Sanctuary Trust (FABST) in

Bromsgrove. We had originally

become aware of some sheep needing rehoming in December

2010. At the time we offered to

take on a small number, but it was

not until August 2011 that plans

were finally put in place for Flee-

cehaven to receive a small group.

The sheep had initially been res-

cued when a Warwickshire farmer

was banned from keeping sheep.

Many of the 250 sheep rescued were in extremely poor condition

as a result of neglect. The farmer

had 26 rams amongst his flock and

the sheep were allowed to breed

indiscriminately. Unusually, the

farmer didn’t like to send his

sheep to slaughter and the flock

grew and grew until he could not

afford to feed them or attend to

their needs properly. FABST un-

dertook to rehome the sheep to

sanctuaries where they would be

safe and could live out their natu-

ral lives in peace. Otherwise,

once seized by DEFRA the fitter ones of the flock would have been

sent to market for slaughter, whilst

the weak, old and sick would have

been put down.

Initially 130 of the sheep were

successfully rehomed by Hillside

and Wood Green but finding

homes for the remaining sheep

was soon put on hold because

many of the sheep were found to

be in lamb. FABST decided that

it would not be right to move the ewes either in lamb or during the

first few months after their lambs

were born and, for this reason, it

was the summer before plans

could be made to rehome the re-

maining sheep and their lambs.

Although already pretty much up

to capacity we agreed to take on

up to ten sheep, but when Mau-

reen, the founder of FABST

called, she explained that she had a group of eleven that had been

kept together since their rescue in

December. We agreed to take the

group and arrangements were

made for them to be transported to

Fleecehaven.

Continued on Page 2

Bromsgrove Rovers contd

Autumn Visitors

News Bleat

Autumn Days 2011

The Big Clean Sadly Missed

New Arrivals

2

2

3

4,5

6 7

8

Inside this Issue:

Settling in to their new home

The Bromsgrove Rovers shortly

after arriving at Fleecehaven

Page 2

Bromsgrove Rovers Continued

FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

Brian gets to know Flor-ence when he and Sean

visited

Angela meets Bluey, Victoria

and Daisy

Paul and Rebekka with Bob-bin, Mitzy, Victoria,

Gemma, Daisy and Fidget

Autumn Visitors

The Bromsgrove Rovers getting their first taste

of Fleecehaven freedom

Kindly, Paul O’Grady had offered to fund the

transportation of all the remaining sheep to

help keep the cost of rehoming to an absolute

minimum.

On the 19th September, the sheep left Bromsgrove early in the morning, together

with seven other sheep who were being taken

to Ferne Animal Sanctuary in Chard en route

to Fleecehaven. We were expecting the sheep

to arrive with us around mid-afternoon but by

tea time they had still not arrived. It was then

that we received a phone call from Shelia, a

friend in a neighbouring village, to explain

that the driver had managed to get his trailer

stuck on a sharp, steep bend in the narrow

lane outside their farmhouse. Thankfully

once her husband, Geoff, had returned home he was able to use his tractor to tow the Land-

over and trailer out of difficulty and just a few

minutes later they arrived .

Once at Fleecehaven it was relatively easy to

offload the sheep, directing them into the area

outside the red barn, which was to become

their temporary home during their quarantine

period. At first the sheep were extremely

nervous, but it was not long before they were

exploring their new surroundings and settling

in to their new home. A few days later our vet came out to check the

new intake over and give them their first vac-

cination. It was then that we discovered that

three of the boys were still entire! Early in

October they paid a visit to the veterinary

hospital where they were successfully castra-

trated. They stayed in the hospital for one night and were clearly a little sore when they

returned home but they have now made a full

recovery. Towards the end of the month the

sheep had their second vaccination and on the

26th October they were released into the main

Fleecehaven fields. They very quickly found

their feet and started exploring the fields and

in next to no time were making friends with

the rest of the Fleecehaven flock. They are

now extremely settled and have moved into

the big shed with the rest of the sheep. How-

ever, with the exception of George, who was named at FABST, all are in need of a name so

check out our website or Facebook Group to

share your suggestions with us.

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 Page 3

News Bleat

Bobbin and Stevie did an awful lot of growing

up during the Autumn. On the 8th September

they both ventured out into the fields for the

very first time and it was not long before they

found their way into the big sheds where they seemed quite happy. When it was time to bed

them down for the night they were reluctant to

leave their new friends so with this in mind,

the following day we moved them out of the

utility room and into an enclosure within the

big sheds. We were able to keep a close eye

on them through the kitchen window and they

quickly settled into their new routine of having

freedom with the flock during the day, but the

security of an enclosed pen at night. On the

29th September they were both admitted to the

veterinary hospital to be castrated. Our vet kept them both in over-night and when they

returned home, other than being a little sore,

neither seemed too worse for wear. They re-

mained within the big sheds until 21st Octo-

ber, when they moved into one of the stables

with our dear old boy, Shaun. Shaun had

sadly lost several of his stable mates in a short

period of time and seemed a little down in the

dumps, thankfully Bobbin and Stevie quickly

cheered him and the three of them have now

become the best of friends.

At the end of September poor old Toby was causing us some concern. He appeared to be

suffering from abdominal pain and seemed a

little vacant. We called our vet out, who was a

little mystified as to what the problem was.

Thankfully blood tests did not identify any

specific problems and it was felt that perhaps

he was just becoming a little senile as a result

of old age. He was given some pain relief and

appeared to settle down. However, by the

beginning of November we were concerned about him again, so our vet decided to scan his

abdomen which proved to look quite normal.

It was agreed that he would be given a vitamin

boost and start a course of steroids. This ap-

pears to be doing the trick at the moment and

he seems quite happy in his own little world

pottering around the yard.

Towards the end of October it was time for us

to trim the sheep’s feet again. A regular

‘pedicure’ is important as it ensures that the

sheep’s hooves are properly shaped and that

any strip (a bacterial infection) or abscesses are identified and suitably treated. It’s always

hard work, but we were fortunate to have

some help from Roger who was staying at

Fleecehaven at the time to visit his boys, Bissy

and Minty. This proved to be particularly

helpful when dealing with those sheep who

don’t like going in the ‘turn-over’ crate and

have to be turned over by hand.

At the end of November we called the vet out

to see Bluey. He had gone off his food and

seemed a little under the weather. Out vet filed

down his remaining teeth and took some

bloods which showed that he was anaemic. He is now on a course of Hb Formula, an

amino-acid mixture with B-Complex and iron.

His blood will be checked again in January

and will hopefully show improvement; he cer-

tainly seems to be much better.

Ste

vie

an

d B

ob

bin

exp

lor-

ing

th

e F

leec

ehav

en f

ield

s

for

the

firs

t ti

me

Posh

en

joyin

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P

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mm

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er

Page 4

Autumn Days 2011

FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

The ‘old girls’ hoping for a

midnight feast

Tigger tak-ing a closer

look at the

camera

Annie keeping an

eye on things in

the yard

Peggy and Philip saunter-ing up the hill

Kylie making the most of the hazy sunshine before it sets

for another day

Snowflake singing for his

supper!

Sammy wending his way home after a day of grazing

Willaby Oak enjoying some autumnal sunbathing

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 Page 5

Basset taking the weight off her feet after a long

hard day of grazing

Rebel on a mission - watch

out girls!!

Eby enjoying tickles from

Emma

Bramble heading

home after an enjoy-

able day of sunshine

Early morning mist over Fleecehaven

Murphy taking a rare short break from grazing to see

what is going on

Time to snuggle up in the straw and get ready for

bed!

Alfie looking as doleful as usual with his big brown

eyes

Page 6 FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

The Big Clean

Because the summer weather had been so

dreadful, it was early autumn before the big

shed clear out was able to get underway and

then it was a case of all hands on deck before

the weather broke again (well, Emma and

Anne’s hands!). The tractors, bobcat and

trailers arrived early in the morning and set

about digging out, emptying and taking away

the contents of the shed which was up to 3’ deep in places!

After a long day the bulk of the muck from

the sheds had been taken away and then the really hard work started. The remaining muck

needed shovelling out before disinfecting and

pressure washing the entire shed. Once dry,

the next job was putting down a thick bed of

wood shavings, a bulk delivery of which had

arrived the week before. Once the shavings

were down

(over 90 bales

of them) it

was time to

break up and spread out

over 70 bales

of straw to

provide a nice

com for ta bl e

bed for the

sheep. This

proved to be

par t i cu lar l y

difficult as

much of the

straw was damp because

of the dreadful

weather during harvesting. With many of the

bales it was necessary to break them open and

leave them in the hay racks to air before fi-

nally being able to spread them out. Over the

period of a week Anne and Emma worked flat

out to get all of this done, working from first

light until well after dark and by the end of the

first week in September all the sheep were

settling back into their new clean quarters. In addition

to this,

Anne de-

cided that

it would

be nice to

paint the

stables as

it would

make it easier to wash the block work down.

This proved to be no mean feat as the rough

surface of the block work made it very diffi-cult to apply the paint. The task was made

even harder with Leo and Henry helping on a

regular basis! After lots of early mornings

and late evening the stables were finally fin-

ished and they now look lovely which is no

less than the Fleecehaven sheep deserve!

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 Page 7

Sadly Missed

The Autumn has sadly seen us have to say

goodbye to a number of our dearly loved

sheep. It is always heartbreaking when we

lose a sheep, but we take solace in knowing

that throughout their time at Fleecehaven they have enjoyed life and received the very

best care possible.

At the beginning of September, following a

short illness, we sadly had to say goodbye to

Larry. Larry had been part of our original

rescued flock and was very much one of our

‘old boys’. We had watched him grow from

a scrawny lamb into an extremely handsome

sheep. He was very tame and never wan-

dered far from the yard. He is greatly missed

by us all.

As we moved into October, we sadly lost the

dear matriarch of our flock, Twiggy. She

died peacefully in her sleep with her daughter

Bassett snuggled up beside her. Twiggy was

a grand old lady and a wonderful character

and, although she was slowing down, she

lived her life to the full until the very end.

The yard still seems empty without her, al-

though she lives on through Basset.

Just a day later we had to make the

difficult decision

to say goodbye to

our dear Teddy.

He had been suf-

fering from arthri-

tis for some time

and unfortunately

the medication that

he was on was no

longer effectively

controlling his condition. He was

a big, hefty boy

and he was finding

it increasingly difficult to get himself up and

down and this was causing him distress. We

had no alternative but to do the one last kind

thing for him. As with Larry, Teddy was

one of our original boys and he has left a

great void in our hearts.

A couple of weeks

later we also had to say goodbye to

another of our

great characters,

Theo. She had

been suffering

from arthritis for a

number of years

and, like Teddy,

medication was no

longer keeping her

comfortable. Theo

had joined Fleece-haven in August

2003 when her owners found themselves no

longer able to look after her. She really was

a gentle giant whose big eyes followed you

everywhere - she will be sorely missed.

Teddy, Aged 13

Lar

ry,

Ag

ed 1

4

Theo, Aged 14

Tw

igg

y, A

ged

21

‘Promoting humane behaviour towards animals by providing care, protection, treatment and

security’

Fleecehaven Howley Park East Buckland North Devon EX32 0TD

01598 760454 admin@fleecehaven.org.uk www.fleecehaven.org.uk

Registered Charity No 1111004

New Arrivals

Fleecehaven still has a number of the popular 'Sheep 'n'

Dales' figures for sale at very competitive prices (less than

50% of the RRP inc P&P). The figures have bags of charac-

ter and would make a wonderful gift for any sheep lover.

Just two of the designs that we have in stock are as shown below. To see our full range, or to place an order, please

visit the Fleecehaven Website and follow the link from our

homepage where you can purchase using PayPal. Alterna-

tively, please drop us a line stating which figure you would

like, including a cheque made payable to Fleecehaven for

the appropriate amount. Remember that by buying from

Fleecehaven you're directly supporting our important work.

Page 8 FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

Thank you to everyone who pur-

chased MegaDraw tickets from

Fleecehaven in 2011. We man-

aged to raise £220 which is just

amazing and went some way towards buying the sawdust and

straw needed to replenish the

sheds following our ‘big clean’.

Thank you so much for your

generosity and support - you

really do make a big difference

to the lives of the Fleecehaven

sheep!

Sheep Thrill £15.00 (RRP: £35)

Romeo & Juliet Bookends £20.00 (RRP: £40)

MegaDraw 2011

On the 21st September two further new arrivals found their

way to Fleecehaven. Shifnal Jacqueline, born on the 14th

April 2001 and Enfield Vashti, born on the 30th April 2003.

Both are pedigree Shetland sheep and were destined for

slaughter. They were bought to us by Lyn who, in the past, brought Mitzy, Fidget, Lupin and Kylie to Fleecehaven.

Both girls are real sweet-hearts and it was just a matter of

hours before they teamed up with Kylie and Lupin who they

clearly remembered from their shared time on the farm from

which they were all rescued.

Sheep ‘n’ Dales