The Woolly Patchwork Sheep Sanctuary

Firstly, a very warm welcome to all our new Sanctuary family members! My apologies for the lack of a newsletter in November 2019. As many of you are aware, I lost Merv in a tragic accident in mid November and my life turned upside down in the blink of an eye. But as Merv would have wanted, life goes on and with so many animals to care for, they have been my saviour and really kept me going through some very dark days. On the downside, it’s left me doing two people’s work through the winter months, which has been hard as it’s been a very wet and muddy winter and it’s not over yet! On a positive note – it’s kept me very fit and slim!!!!

So what’s been happening at the Sanctuary? Sadly we’ve lost 3 of our old girls. Chanelle, who had a severe respiratory infection early in 2019, but managed to bounce back. She was very lucky that the summer of 2019 was a good one and it gave her an extra 12 months that she so nearly never had. But the endless wet of this winter finally caught up with her lungs again and after consultation with my vet, who suspected she may have a tumour in the lung, we decided it was best to let her go quietly with dignity before she started to suffer.

Spottie and Purdy finally succumed to their arthritis. They had gamely plugged on for so long bless them, but sadly age and immobility eventually got the better of them. It’s never easy to say goodbye to any of the oldies. All these girls had spent their whole life at the Sanctuary and as they get older and needier, you tend to get even closer to them than before. It just makes the eventual goodbye so hard. Sometimes they take matters into their own hands and other times I have to make a decision along with my vets advice. The hard part of keeping animals.

We have lost a few of our residents over the past year, so I have been able to offer a place at the Sanctuary to 3 girls who’s owner has been diagnosed with cancer. This is a gentleman who i’ve homed many orphan lambs for over the past 20 years. Although he has a small commercial flock of sheep, he’s decided to sell them all now, but he has 3 black girls that he doesn’t want to go to market and has asked me if I would take them. I have agreed as they are relatives of some of our Sanctuary residents and I feel they belong here with their family. They will hopefully be moving to the Sanctuary before the winter.

Three new girls joined the flock in September 2019. Crystal, Coral and Lucinda. They’ve all settled in really quickly, made new friends and become an integral part of the flock. Coral and Crystal are twin sisters, 3 years old and Lucinda is Coral’s lamb, born in March 2019. They came from a farmer friend who is suffering with cancer and he was quite sentimental about these 3 sheep and didn’t want them to go to market so asked if I would offer them a home. So pleased I was able to say yes.

We had an early snowfall back in November. I can’t say we’ve never had snow here in November before, we have, but never so early in the month! Having said that in 2003 we had snow in July so anything is possible here!! When you live at 1000ft above sea level and above the snow line the weather can often surprise you!!!

All our lovely fleeces from the 2019 clip have now been sold. The order book is fairly full for the 2020 clip which is fantastic news.

We were blessed with so many gifts from our Amazon wishlist over the Christmas period. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to everyone who so generously purchased items for the Sanctuary. Not only that, but donations as well. A massive Thank You to all who supported us in this way. I was very humbled by everyones kindness and generosity.

January saw the flock have their winter fluke dose. Fluke is a very nasty little snail that lives in wet areas of grassland and lays eggs that infect the liver and bile ducts of the sheep. As it’s been such a wet winter and we have many wet, rushy areas on the farm, its a job we have to do three times a year to prevent the sheep suffering liver damage. The fluke forecast for the UK as a whole has been high and its something my vet insists on me treating for in October, January and April. Each year I sit down with my vet and we discuss and formulate an annual flock health plan. Wherever possible, prevention is always better than cure!

They’re never very keen on a dose of probably not very nice tasting medicine and who can blame them. That is apart from Storm who just stands there asking for more!! I’m sure there’s something wrong with her taste buds!!! Strangely enough her mother and grandmother were exactly the same. I think her whole family were just so food orientated they never really bothered about what it was or how it tasted so long as there was something to eat or drink!!!

A couple of our older girls are sporting warm, waterproof coats. Neither Ffibi nor Shrimp are carrying a lot of weight. By wearing coats they are not loosing energy trying to keep warm when they could be using it to gain a bit of weight. I’ve found this helps greatly with some of the slimmer girls in the winter months. After only a couple of weeks, both girls appear to be putting on a few pounds.

During the Winter months, from December to the end of March, each night the sheep have access to the sheds where they come in to deep straw beds and have hay, molassed mineral blocks and himalayan salt licks to keep them occupied. They are always glad of the shelter from the wind and rain and it allows their feet some respite from the mud.

The boys have never come into the sheds in previous years, they’ve preferred to be out 24/7 with a hayrack and trough in the field. But this Winter has been so wet and their feet started to suffer so I brought them down to the little yard and shed at the back of the house. Oh my….i couldn’t get them out of the shed for a few days, they were very impressed at having an indoor hayrack and feed trough and a nice warm, cosy bed. I suppose I took pity on them a bit as they are both that bit older now!!

February has seen some pretty wild weather with firstly Storm Ciara which went on for nearly 5 days with rain and up to 80 mph winds swiftly followed by Storm Dennis, again with torrential rain and high winds.

Despite the rain, wind and mud we’ve still had the pleasure of welcoming a few visitors to the Sanctuary and look forward to welcoming more once the weather picks up again. The kettle is always on and there’s usually biccys in the tin. If you fancy bringing wellies and work clothes, I can always find you a job, there’s rarely a slack day here!

So we are now looking forward to the Spring, when the flock can get out onto fresh, green grass. Warmer days and lighter evenings. There are signs of brighter days to come with the trees in bud and daffodils, primrose and crocus all out already.

Thank you to all of you for your generosity and support. I couldn’t do this without you all behind me. Our only income is from adoptions, donations and fleece sales plus the faecal egg counting work that I do and every penny goes straight to the care of the flock.

Looking forward to meeting up with old friends and new in the coming months.

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