The Woolly Patchwork Sheep Sanctuary

Firstly a big welcome to all the new members of our sanctuary family!
Thank you to all of you for your generosity and support. I really couldn’t do it
without you. The only income the sanctuary receives is from adoptions,
donations and sales of our fleeces and every penny goes straight to the
care of the flock. Thank you also to everyone who has generously
purchased items for the flock from our Amazon wish list.

Here’s a link to a short video of our lovely Coco testing one of the salt licks sent by one of our wonderful sponsors.

The testing winter months are now a distant memory and spring is in full swing. The grass is growing like crazy and once the weather improved at the end of March, the sheep went out to grass 24/7.Daily winter work is never ending – mucking out, re-bedding, hay, watering,feeding….

Once the sheep had gone out to grass in March, the sheds were fully cleaned out. The old girls have access to shelter all year round but their beds were all cleaned and refreshed.

Chanelle who was unwell with a severe respiratory infection back in February appears to have recovered but is still not gaining any weight. She goes out on cold or wet days in a waterproof rug which she enjoys. She seems very happy and is grazing well so she will continue to be closely monitored on a day to day basis.

On a very sad note we lost our beloved Bonnie just a few days after her 15th birthday. She was well right up to the end but as so often happens with elderly sheep, they are fine one minute and not with us the next. She is very much missed and we will never forget her.

Towards the end of March, all the sheep had their annual vaccination to protect against clostridial diseases and they also had a worm dose….yuck – they don’t like the taste of that, except for Storm who loves it and always
wants more, but she’s just weird!!!

Now our thoughts are rapidly turning to shearing. This week has seen the start of the spring tidy up….dagging, foot trimming and a fluke dose. The combs and cutters have all been sharpened up, handpiece oiled and ready. Dagging involves shearing the fleece off the tails and tidying up around the bum area to make the job of shearing easier and quicker for the shearer when he comes here. He only has to shear the body wool and doesn’t loose time fiddling about with tails. Our shearer is the wonderful Ned, a Wool Board Gold Grade qualified shearer. Apart from being a top quality shearer, he is patient and handles the sheep with care and respect. As part of our income is from fleece sales, it’s important that the sheep are sheared cleanly with no second cuts in the fleece. We have some absolutely amazing fleeces again this year, I can’t wait to sort them, grade them and get them off to their new homes!!! The fleece order book is really filling up with over half of the fleeces already pre sold!!

Once dagging is out of the way, the fieldwork will start. All the fields will be chain harrowed and rolled. Some of our land is quite wet and grows patches of rush, so they will be topped to curb growth. We manage our land organically so we don’t apply any chemical fertiliser or sprays to the land.

We’ve had some enjoyable days recently with visitors coming to the
sanctuary to meet their sponsored sheep. It’s always a pleasure to welcome
friends to the sanctuary and I hope some of you will be able to make the trip
to see us this year.

Let’s hope we have another lovely summer were we can all re-charge our batteries with some heat and sunshine!!!

Lots of love and grateful thanks
Caroline and the Baa’s
xx