The Woolly Patchwork Sheep Sanctuary

Bleatings from the Woolly Patchwork Sheep Sanctuary

A very warm welcome to all the new members of our Sanctuary family.

After a pretty good summer, we’re now well and truly into Autumn with all the wonderful warm colours that come with the turning of the seasons. In Wales we probably won’t get a long Autumn period, it usually turns to Winter fairly quickly. November has been fairly mild on the whole so we’ve been fortunate so far!

The old girls and delicates are now bedded down indoors at night time. 4pm and they are all queuing at the gate to come in for supper! I don’t need a watch to know what time it is. I’m hoping the younger ewes will be able to stay out at nights until well into December.

Once the first lockdown finished, we managed to open to a few visitors which was lovely. I know Alys was happy about it, she’d missed her extra fuss and rich tea biscuits!!

August saw the shed filled up with bales of straw. Due to a poor harvest this year, straw was in short supply. I usually stock up once it’s available but made sure I had more than enough this year. Really glad I did as it’s quite scarce and very expensive now we are approaching winter.

Now I no longer have a tractor and loader to handle big round bales of haylage, I’ve changed to small bales of haylage, so we are well stocked with them as well.

Also feed blocks to provide energy and minerals throughout the winter when there isn’t much goodness in the grass.

I’d been trying to paint the roof of the big sheep shed all summer, without much joy, but finally in September I managed to get up there and paint the lower side, which is exposed to a lot of Westerly wind and rain throughout the winter. It’s always a bit of a juggling act, what with a roof ladder, large pot of paint, brushes, rope to tie me on and being dive bombed by the odd low flying jet. After 4 days of sitting cockeyed on a ridged roof, I was very ache and glad to have the job done!!

September saw the departure of my beloved little Emerald. She’d been suffering with mild arthritis for the last 3 years but it really ramped up a level this last Spring. However, she enjoyed a good Summer thanks to magnetic leg wraps, veterinary pain relief and homeopathic treatment. Although well and happy in herself, sadly her legs gave up on her and although she was able to get up and down with relative ease, she just lost the confidence and will to walk. Having to make a decision to put an animal to sleep is a decision I never want to make, but I accept it is part of caring for my animals and every decision taken here is always for the ultimate welfare of the animal. She is very much missed and we will never forget her.

October saw some early stormy weather when the older girls came in at night. Thanks to Storm Alex, we had rather too much rain and saw a lot of flooding in the local area. We are fortunate here that most of the water runs on by, but it does leave things very muddy in its wake.

Smout and Ellie the two lambs that came to live with us in August, joined the main younger flock. They are typical teenagers, finding their feet and pushing the boundaries. A real pair of little monkeys, both growing like weeds!

October saw us go into a second lockdown in Wales for 17 days.

Just before this, we gave sanctuary to the lovely Jessie, a 7 year old Jacob cross ewe. Sadly all her companions had passed away one by one over the years and poor Jessie found herself on her own and rather lonely. She has fitted right in here, a lovely friendly character, so happy to have some new friends.

I’ve planned some fun for December with a daily “game” on our social media pages so keep a look out for that. We are on face book, Instagram and twitter.

So that rounds off what has been a very unusual year. Covid 19, something we never expected, which has spun our day to day lives on its head, wherever we may be in the world! We have been quite fortunate where I live but sadly cases are now starting to rise here and we are all having to be ultra-careful. Let’s hope for more positive news in the near future.

Thank you everyone for your continued support of the Sanctuary. I hope life will be able to get back to some sort of normality in the New Year and I look forward to welcoming many of you back to the Sanctuary again.

Take care and keep safe my friends.

Much love,
Caroline & The Baa’s xxx