Happy Christmas to all our supporters

I would like to wish all our supporters and readers a very Happy Christmas, and I hope that 2009 will be a prosperous year for you all and for Vale Wildlife.

Thank you to everyone who has helped us to continue our work for almost 25 years - without public support we would not be here today.

A huge than you also to the staff and all our volunteers who have worked tirelessly over the past year looking after all the casualties that have come through our doors, raising vital funds to keep us going, helping in our charity shop and spreading the word about our work.

Have a great time and please help us to make 2009, our 25th anniversary year, the most successful yet.

Sad muntjac story

Today we had a very young muntjac deer brought in, we estimate only about 3 weeks old. He had been caught by a dog. He had probably been left, hidden away by his mum while she went off to feed. Unfortunately the dog discovered him and he sustained a bite to his side causing some ribs to be fractured.

Deer of any age are very difficult to deal with as they are so susceptible to stress when in close contact with people. This little one was in deep shock when he arrived and obviously had breathing problems due to his injuries.

He was given pain relief and steroids and was put in a heated, oxygenated incubator in a quiet room. Sadly he died a couple of hours later.

We still have lots of underweight hedgehogs coming in and we are looking after over 100, despite the fact that some people have been taking them to look after until they reach the important 600 gram mark needed to survive the winter.

We hope you all have a great Christmas - please spare a thought for our staff who will be working throughout the Christmas and New Year period in the Hospital, caring for the 170 casualties in our care at the moment, plus any others that arrive over this time.

The end of a difficult year.

As we come to the end of 2008, with a hospital full of hedgehogs, we can reflect on what has been a difficult and challenging year for Vale Wildlife in several ways.

Our biggest challenge, and the one which causes us most concern is the current financial crisis facing all of us. Obviously, the global credit crunch is having a massive affect on all charities but I do believe that the smaller charities are going to suffer more than many of the larger ones.

In the scheme of things we are a tiny charity and we live on the edge financially all the time so when times are harder for our supporters, the very people who keep the hospital going from day to day, we understandably receive less in the way of donations.

With only about 4 months running costs in the bank at any one time, things will go downhill very fast without continued public support.

Please remember sick and injured wildlife this Christmas and help Vale Wildlife to get through these difficult times.

In June 2009 we hope to be celebrating our 25th Anniversary - it would be very sad if we were unable to reach this important milestone.

Almost the end of another year already!!

This year has flown past, it will soon be 2009 and we are still busy here at Vale.

Our total patient intake to date is well up on last year, and although it is a lot quieter than it was in the spring and summer, we are still taking in more injured wildlife than usual.

The animal which we are seeing more than any other at the moment is, yes, you've guessed it....the hedgehog.

As usual in the autumn the youngsters from the second litters of hoglets are desperately trying to feed themselves up so as to gain a big enough fat reserve to survive the cold weather. Half-grown hogs are turning up in peoples gardens during the day on a regular basis on their quest for food.

Being normally nocturnal, the advice is that if a hedgehog is out in the daytime there is usually a problem. That problem might just be the need for extra food, but the youngsters are also prone to various infections which will need antibiotics to clear up.

If you do find a small hedgehog out in the day, seek advice from us or from your nearest wildlife rescue centre (weigh the little chap before ringing as this information is vital in order to give the correct advice). It is best to put it in a box whilst you are seeking advice otherwise he/she will invariably have disappeared by the time you go back to find it!!

Two recent 'patients':

1) A little grebe, or dabchick (pictured) came in with no obvious injuries. He was with us for a few days before being released back into the wild.

2) A swan was brought in, supposedly with nothing wrong with it, just needed releasing so we were told. We were immediately concerned because it had a swelling in the upper part of it's throat. Alarm bells....fishing hook......we x-rayed and found that our suspicions were correct. The hook and line (pictured) were removed through a small incision in the swans neck. A couple of sutures and an antibiotic injection later and the swan was recovering under an infra-red heat light. He will be going for release in a few days!! Another success story.

Update at last!!!

By mid-September we normally expect to be much quieter on the patient front here at Vale. This year is not going to plan as we are still busy & I haven’t had the time I would like to spend updating my blog, which is why I haven’t written on it for ages.

I have been busy, not only with the animals, but also getting our latest Newsletter out, & organising our wildlife course which is due to start at the beginning of October.
We have finished preparing our temporary lecture room (it is so frustrating that we were granted planning permission for our fantastic Education & Training Centre 18 months ago but we are still no nearer to raising the £400,000 needed to actually build it).

At the time of writing this we still have places available for the first course which will run for 3 consecutive Sundays, starting on 05 October. Anyone interested please email me at caroline@vwr.org.uk for a booking form & itinerary.

We are rearing a large number of baby hedgehogs at the moment, in fact our Brooder Room is filled with these & baby grey squirrels, but this is what we expect every year in September & October. Hedgehogs often have a litter of young in the late summer/early autumn & these babies struggle to reach a suitable weight to survive the winter. Without adequate fat reserves they will die in the colder weather which is the reason that young hedgehogs are often seen out & about during the day (hedgehogs are nocturnal & so it usually indicates a problem if they are out in daylight hours), desperately searching for the food needed to build them up for the winter.
Sometimes it is a case of just feeding them up until they reach around 600gms when they can then be released back out into the wild, but often they need a course of antibiotics or they need worming as hedgehogs are so prone to various infections & also to internal parasites.

Most of the grey squirrels we rear at this time of year will remain with us over the winter as they won’t have a stored food supply to keep them going. They will be released next spring.

Back at last!!

Sincere apologies for not having posted anything on here for absolutely ages but we are in the midst of our most manic season at the Hospital & I simply haven't had time to even think about writing anything.

At the moment we are inundated with baby hedgehogs (& older ones too come to that). Our Brooder Room (the room where all the tiniest & sickest animals are cared for) is packed solid with all kinds of baby mammal & bird. We have 37 hoglets to hand feed first thing (& then at varying times throughout the day & evening), all needing careful feeding with syringes full of Esbilac (the milk replacer we use for rearing hedgehogs). This is an extremely time-consuming job as baby mammals need to be fed very carefully so as not to allow milk down into their lungs, which can often be fatal. Very young mammals also need to be stimulated to urinate & defecate before feeding as they are unable to do this without stimulation (naturally, mum would do this by licking her offspring to encourage them to pass urine & faeces, but we use a moistened cotton bud!)

Each animal is carefully weighed both before & after hand-feeding & their weights are recorded on their record sheets. The constant monitoring of each ones weight is the best way of telling whether or not they are doing well, or if there is a problem. Without weight monitoring it is very easy to overlook a problem, which can very quickly lead to serious illness, dehydration or even death.

Besides all these hoglets (& more turning up every day) the Brooder Room is also home to many baby birds needing hand-feeding every 15-30 minutes, so you can imagine that this room is a hive of activity from early in the morning until late at night.

The days are very long for our poor Care Assistants at the moment - they are expected to put in many hours for not very much pay but on the whole they do a grand job - the Hospital wouldn't be here today without them & all the willing volunteers that come in at all times of the day & evening to help us out.

Unfortunately, this is also the time of year when our funds hit a regular low point as our running costs shoot up incredibly because of the increase in the amount of food we use & the massive increase in antibiotic & other drug usage.

We desperately need people to fundraise for us or give a donation.

Natalie & Helen are still raising sponsorship for their Arctic Trek they are undertaking next April. They can be sponsored through their Just Giving Fundraising Page at www.justgiving.com/nataliegould

Neil Hopkins is going to be running the Bristol Half Marathon on 14 September to raise money for us. Please let me know if you would like to sponsor him, or donate directly from our website http://www.vwr.org.uk/

Well that's it for now. Will post again soon....I hope!

Please let me have any positive (or negative) feedback about my Blog & feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Baby season in full swing!!

The baby bird season is now well under way. Our Brooder Room, where all birds young enough to need hand feeding start off, is full to bursting with dozens of baby blue tits, great tits, robins, woodpeckers, blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, pigeons, jackdaws & more.

Feeding them is like painting the Forth Bridge - mouths gaping, calling for food, no sooner has someone finished one round of feeding, they have to start all over again. From 7am until late at night there is constant feeding going on in this room.

The smaller birds such as the tits, are fed every 15 minutes throughout the day & with nests full of 10 - 12 young in each, you can imagine the chaos.

We get dozens of calls every day from people who have found injured or abandoned birds & they want them to be collected.

Although we would love to be able to do this, for the animals sake, it is hard to make people understand that we just don't have the resources to collect all the casualties. If we responded to every call there would never be any staff in the Hospital to look after the hundreds of animals we have there!! We do have volunteers who will pick up casualties near to them, but a majority of people are at work all day & are only able to help out ocassionally.

A lot of people seem very reluctant to actually bring casualties to us & in these cases unfortunately there is often nothing that we can do. It is not that we don't care, just that we, & all other wildlife centres at this time of year, are so busy that it is impossible to leave the Hospital.

Anyone who would like to be a volunteer collector for us, bringing casualties in from around the area they live, please get in touch.

Balloons

Last night, while walking our dogs we found a balloon with a card attached asking the finder to fill in the location found & return it to a school in Reading.

The balloon had been entered in a race to raise money for WaterAid (a very worthwhile cause).

Raising money for good causes is great & should be encouraged but everyone should be aware of the potential damage to wildlife, particularly marine wildlife, from the ingestion of latex balloons.

The balloon in question had luckily landed just outside our deer paddock - had it gone into the paddock our deer would certainly have eaten the balloon. Potentially, this could have been fatal.

We support calls for the banning of mass balloon releases. Anyone who drops litter can be fined up to £2500, but spreading balloons around the countryside is not classed as littering!! Do you understand it? I don't.

The Marine Conservation Society can provide facts & figures on how much damage is done to marine creatures, especially turtles. Visit their site at http://www.mcsuk.org/

Please do your bit for charities (especially this one!!!) but don't do it at the expense of our natural environment & our wildlife within it.

Baby birds by the dozen...

It's now getting much, much busier at the Hospital. Dozens of baby birds are now coming in - yesterday we took in 13 young jackdaws, not all one brood, but three different ones. I wish that this blog had sound so you could here the racket they make as soon as they think they are going to be fed!!! Our staff need ear plugs in the Brooder Room at the moment.

The picture shows one of our 'nests' of jackdaws.

Birds such as these corvids (crows, rooks, jackdaws etc) are reared on Eukanuba dog food which has been soaked in water for around an hour with extra vitamins, minerals and calcium added. They do very well on this, putting on good weight and their feathers seem very healthy and strong. As soon as they are old enough we encourage them to start feeding themselves and gradually lessen the hand-feeding and human contact to prevent them becomming imprinted on people.

Other youngsters with us at the moment include baby great tits, robins, dunnocks, rooks, blackbirds and thrushes as well as fox cubs and young squirrels.

This picture shows one of our squirrels being hand fed using a milk substitute.

Many thanks to everyone who has sponsored Natalie and Helen on their Arctic Challenge so far. They still have a long way to go to reach their £6,000 target. Please support them by sponsoring them and help us to raise the funds to build our Vale Wildlife Education & Training Centre.

Arctic Challenge!!

Two of our supporters, Helen Colbourne & Natalie Gould, have bravely volunteered to drive a team of huskies 250km across the frozen wastelands of Norway into Sweden to raise much-needed funds for Vale Wildlife!!
They must be mad!!!
But with your support they want to raise as much as possible to put towards the building of the Vale Wildlife Education & Training Centre, a £400,000 project which we have now been granted planning permission for.

Helen & Natalie are aiming to raise a minimum of £6,000 in sponsorship for the trek which will take place in April 2009. Obviously there are costs involved in taking part in this challenge, so the more sponsorship they can get, the more money comes to the charity.
The girls have set up a fundraising page on the Justgiving website. To see their page & to donate online please go to http://www.justgiving.com/nataliegould
Alternatively sponsorship can be sent directly to us at Vale Wildlife Rescue, Station Road, Beckford, Tewkesbury, Glos, GL20 7AN. Please make sure you let us know that it is for the 'Arctic Challenge'.

As soon as we have sponsor forms available we will let you know & if you are willing to get sponsors for Helen & Natalie that will help to boost their total.

PLEASE BE GENEROUS.

Just so busy...

I hadn't realised it's been so long since I posted on here. It's been so busy at the Hospital I just haven't had the time to write.

We are now mid-way through our part time Wildlife First Aid & Rehabilitation course, which is going well with 17 students this time (we usually have a maximum of 15).

We will shortly be running courses actually at Vale as we are in the process of installing a temporary classroom which should be ready in a few weeks. This will tide us over until we can raise the £400,000 we need to build the Vale Wildlife Education & Training Centre next door to the Hospital.

At the moment we can only run the course from a local college once a year but we would like to be able to accommodate many more people interested in learning the basics of wildlife rehabilitation.

Our patient numbers are way up on last years & we are urgently seeking volunteer drivers from all areas who are willing to pick up small casualties from local areas surrounding their home & bring them to the Hospital. We are getting loads of calls from people who have found a casualty but are unable to get it to us.

If you can help us out with this please get in touch.

We now have 13 fox cubs in total, dozens of baby & young birds to feed, we have just taken in 3 tawny owl chicks & we are dealing with a huge increase in the number of deer coming in, mainly because of road traffic accidents....... & we haven't even got to the busiest time of year yet!!!

If you want to help us raise much-needed funds please organise a fundraiser of your own - arrange a Coffee Morning or jumble sale, think up a novelty sponsored event, run a marathon or come & help us at our weekly car boot sale, in our Charity Shop or at another fundraising event. If you want to help, we want to hear from you.

Lastly, for the moment, a plea from all wildlife hospitals:

• If you find a fledgling (a youngster, fully feathered apart from probably having a very stubby tail!) bird, do not immediately assume it has been abandoned or orphaned & pick it up. Most birds, when they first leave the nest, cannot fly well, if at all, but spend most of their time on the ground or in low bushes & branches, practicing their flight but are still fed by their parents. They should be left alone. If you have a cat, keep it in at this time of year as much as possible.
• Fawns (young deer) are left alone sometimes for many hours, while the mum goes off to feed. Do not go near them, but leave them alone.
• Fox cubs which appear to be abandoned are usually fine. Please seek advice from us or a similar organisation before interfering.
• IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF WHAT TO DO, PLEASE CONTACT US OR YOUR LOCAL WILDLIFE HOSPITAL / WILDLIFE RESCUE CENTRE.

Casualty numbers up on 2007.....

Casualty figures for the year so far are showing an increase of about one third! It is difficult to know the reasons for this but one contributing factor is probably the closure of another nearby wildlife centre which used to cover a large area of Gloucestershire. We have certainly noticed an increase of animals coming in from what would have been their area. This is a blow to wildlife as we need more wildlife hospitals, and not less!

We are getting busier now, with two more fox cubs being brought in, one around 4 weeks old & the other one a bit older at about 5-6 weeks.

The other 2 cubs are now doing fine & have opened their eyes. They are getting a lot more active between feeds & are taking plenty of milk at each feed. Note: when I refer to 'milk' I mean a milk substitute as cow's milk should never be used for rearing baby mammals! You can possibly see them on our webcam during the day but it is not easy to train the camera on the type of brooder they are now in so apologies if you cannot see them.

We also have several baby rabbits in at the moment & five baby squirrels. As yet we have had no young birds, which I am quite surprised about......but I am sure the flood gates will open any day now!!!

Fox Cub Update

The fox cubs are now 11 days old but sadly we now only have two remaining. Since they came in they have had one problem after another, mainly due to them being left in the cold & wet for so long during their first 24 hours. We also don't know whether or not they received the all-important colostrum from the vixen after they were born. Without this baby mammals are highly susceptible to all infections as they have not received the necessary antibodies to fight off bacteria.

Unfortunately we lost one of the cubs suddenly after a couple of days. It was unexpected as they seemed to be doing well, but this one obviously had internal problems that we were not aware of.

The next set back was that the remaining cubs all developed chest infections &, although we were loath to put them onto antibiotics at their young age, we ended up with no choice as the infection would have killed them without it. We gave them a four day course of the minutest amount of antibiotic, which worked well, but then they developed diarrhoea as a result. Being so tiny they were then at great risk of dehydration because of this so we had to start them on subcutaneous injections of fluids to counteract this.

Despite receiving hourly intensive treatment from dedicated staff, a third cub died yesterday, leaving the remaining 2 which are making good progress at the time of writing. They will open their eyes any day now, which is another of their milestones. Fox cubs eyes are blue when they first open but change to their adult amber colour when they are around four to five weeks old.

I hope to post new pictures here shortly & will write another update soon.....

First Fox Cubs of 2008

On Sunday 16 March the RSPCA brought in the first fox cubs of the year. Five tiny cubs, less than 24 hours old were brought in after being found under a garden hedge. They had been left all day and by the time they were picked up they were freezing cold and we doubted that they would survive the night. Four of them weighed around 100 grams each which is the average weight for fox cubs, but the fifth one only weighed 58 grams and he sadly died the next day.

Since then, one more has died but the other three are feeding well and gaining good weight. During the day the cubs can be seen on our webcam (accessible from a link on the left of our website homepage), but as they need regular feeding throughout the evening and night, they are being taken home by a member of staff and therefore cannot be viewed at night.

Check back for updates.....

Getting Busier....

We are here to deal with any British wildlife in need of our help & we are available 24 hours a day for large mammals i.e. badgers, foxes & deer. A majority of these larger animals get into trouble during the hours of darkness as this is the time that they are most active although we might get one or two foxes or deer in the day time in the space of a week.

Thursday was, I hope, an exception to this as, during the day, one badger, 3 foxes, one feral pigeon, one woodpigeon, one song thrush, one collared dove and one roe deer were admitted to the Hospital! Five large mammals in a day!

We have certainly been busier so far this year than for the same period in previous years, and we have received many more calls than usual concerning the larger animals. We are also getting an increasing number of calls concerning mange in foxes again. The numbers seemed to be dropping but lately the numbers of foxes suffering from this nasty problem is on the increase again. These days mange is easily treatable with a drug put in food for the affected foxes and most people are happy to work with us to get rid of mange without putting the fox through the stress of catching it and bringing it back to the Centre to treat.

Left untreated, mange, which is caused by a mite burrowing under the skin, can often eventually kill the poor animal. The intense itching caused by the mites leads to non-stop scratching which eventually causes sores which then become infected. While all this is going on the fox doesn't manage to hunt properly and becomes emaciated, eventually either dying of starvation or of septicaemia.

Anyone who has seen an animal suffering from advanced mange will know just how much pain and suffering these microscopic mites can cause.

Yes, we are still here!!!.....

It's been two whole months since I posted anything on here & I apologise sincerely for this. We have been quiet on the animal front (although this years figures are already well up on 2007), but despite this things seem to have been hectic all winter.

We have had a major office reorganisation, as things had been piling up in there for so long that we ended up with about 2 square feet of floor space with mountains of paperwork surrounding us - this might be just a touch of an exaggeration but not much! The whole hospital has had a spring clean (or winter clean as it is in this line of work), the staff & volunteers have been hard at it building new enclosures outside, & they've made a fantastic job of constructing some new accommodation for ducklings, young gulls, fox cubs & other youngsters.

I think that we are now just about ready for the inevitable spring rush, with fox cubs probably being the first to arrive, any day now.

As well as preparing for all the youngsters we have the constant worry of raising all the funds needed to look after them all (oh, & to pay the staff!!). We also need to think about how to raise the £400,000 needed to build our Education & Training Centre which we now have planning permission for - any lottery winners out there?

Anyone who is familiar with Ebay might like to take a look at the items that we are selling on our charity Ebay site, & maybe put in a bid. Our user name is vale-wildlife (surprisingly!). If you are selling anything & would like to donate a percentage to us, we are registered with Missionfish, the charity partner of Ebay & you can nominate Vale Wildlife as your chosen charity when you are listing your items, to receive all or part of the sale price.

Well, that's it for now but I WILL be back soon with some more news from the Hospital.....