NEW WEBSITE

Just to let you know that, as we now have a brand new website at www.valewildlife.org.uk which has its own News Page, this Blog will not be updated very often.

Vale News will be updated several times a week on the website & you can sign up to receive emails when news is posted.

There is loads of information on the site as well as many photographs which will be changed & added to on a regular basis.

Please stay in touch with Vale Wildlife by visiting our new website. http://www.valewildlife.org.uk

New 'baby' season & new website!!

Well, things are getting much busier now in the Hospital with several fox cubs, a badger cub, a nest of baby robins, fledgling blackbirds, baby rabbits and more coming in every day.

If you want to keep up-to-date with what's going on, take a look (and join) our brand new website:

http://www.valewildlife.org.uk/

The site is easy to update so check back to it regularly to find out what's happening and what casualties we are treating at Vale. There will soon be a Members area on the website too so it's worth becoming a Member of Vale (you can print out a Membership form & even pay through the new site).

Take a look at it and let us know your thoughts. Our new email address is info@valewildlife.org.uk

Sorry folks, have been neglecting my readers!

I know, I haven't posted on here for over a month now. I've been so busy at Vale that I just haven't had a chance to get on here. As well as this Blog, you can keep up-to-date with things on our Facebook Group so take a look at that too.

Firstly, I must acknowledge & thank our anonymous donor who I have written about before. We had thought that his/her amazing support had come to an end as our weekly donations stopped arriving. However, a couple of weeks ago, they started coming in again! These donations actually pay the wages of one Care Assistant at Vale so you can see just how valuable they have been to us & whoever you are, thank you so much & I only hope that support such as this keeps on coming.

We are just at the start of our busy season & we have a few babies coming in now: a muntjac fawn, a tawny owl chick that was found at the base of a tree but much too young to be out of the nest, three baby rabbits & we now have 2 fox cubs, one was only a few days old when she arrived 5 days ago (pictured) & the other one arrived today, found near a dead sibling but no sign of mum or the earth. I will try to keep this Blog more up-to-date about their progress.

Article appearing on The Guardian online today

Video: Wildlife rescue centre suffers in recession | Environment | guardian.co.uk

What we could do with a lottery win....

56 million pounds, the latest lottery windfall won by a Gloucestershire couple.

It's very difficult not to sound bitter - I am not bitter, it is just so sad that so many, many charities struggle to raise enough money to continue their work, and in our line of work I have seen many people forced to give up helping sick and injured wildlife because of the effects of the recession, and people win these absolutely ridiculous amounts of money. A life-changing amount is one thing, but these wins could be life-changing for so many more people and organisations, not just one person.

With our running costs as they stand at the moment, that win would pay for Vale for the next 224 years!! With a small part of it, we could build our Education Centre, buy all the equipment that we need, kit out the Hospital with new cages, pay decent wages, employ extra staff, I could go on and on - oh, and not have to spend all our time worrying about where the next month's running costs are going to come from!!

Perhaps I am just a little bitter - sorry!

Pet food appeal

It's January, the quietest month of the year at Vale, but we are getting through around 600 tins of dog & cat food every single week! 90 hedgehogs plus foxes, gulls & corvids are all responsible for devouring so many tins.

Our shelves are almost empty & having to buy so much food at a time of year when fundraising is the hardest is draining our meagre rescources. Please help by sending a donation or by bringing in a few tins if you live close enough to us. Donations can also be made by visiting our website at http://www.vwr.org.uk

Please help us out at this difficult time.

Thank-you.

Winter wildlife

Give a thought to our poor wildlife in this freezing weather. We have had 2 call-outs so far today:
The first was to a cygnet in Pershore, sitting on ice looking decidedly unwell where it had been since at least the night before. I am surprised it survived the freezing night time temperatures. Our vet checked it over, its temperature was over 4 degrees lower than normal & it was very lethargic. Wildlife is having great difficulty finding food with everything covered in thick snow so please make sure that you are putting as much variety of food out as possible & don't forget the water too.
The cygnet was given 300mls of warmed fluids subcutaneously & is now in our nice warm brooder room where its temperature is gradually increasing.
The second call-out was to a muntjac deer fawn, a tiny little female aged about 3-4 days!! She weighs just over 1 kilo & had been caught by a dog. We cannot see any major injuries on her but she is in shock, one of the biggest killers of wildlife, especially deer. She has been tubed some milk replacer & is now in one of our intensive care brooders, slowly warming up. We will keep our fingers crossed for both of these winter casualties.

Hedgehogs, hedgehogs & more hedgehogs.

Although the winter months are the quietest of the year for wildlife casualties, we are still kept very busy with dozens of underweight hedgehogs. Our Small Mammal Room is full of them at the moment, & a large part of the day is spent cleaning out, feeding & giving medications to our prickly friends. Hedgehogs are very prone to all sorts of infections & they invariably end up on antibiotics of some description. Over the years we have learned the most effective drugs to use on them as well as the dose necessary to have the desired effect, which is often an extremely high dose. If you are a hedgehog carer, or you know someone who is, we have just finished a new 'Hedgehog medication & doses chart', formulated by myself & our vet & anyone who is interested in having a copy can email me at caroline@vwr.org.uk

'Hedgehog Basic First Aid, Care & Rehabilitation' courses are now being run at Vale, organised & funded by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. Anyone interested in booking onto one of these courses should ring the BHPS on 01584 890801 for details.

Another year almost over.

Things in the Hospital have now become much quieter, which is normal for the approach of winter. All the staff here can now breath a sigh of relief & take things a bit easier now the spring & summer rush has finished for another year.

Although the numbers of most species coming in has greatly reduced, we are still taking in a large number of hedgehogs but again, it is normal for us to have a lot of autumn juveniles in over the winter months. These are mainly ones which haven't managed to put enough weight on to survive hibernation. They need to weigh well over 500gms as we get into the colder weather so if you are seeing any youngsters around it is worth giving them a quick weigh to make sure they are big enough. Also, if a hedgehog is out in the day, it is usually a sign that there is a problem, so pick him up, weigh him & then contact us or your nearest wildlife centre for advice.

It is now almost a year since we first started receiving our mystery, anonymous donations that I have written about before. Since we first started receiving them, a total of £8,540 has been very generously given by that person &, although we don't know who it is, we would like to thank him/her/them for their fantastic support, & I just hope that they are regular readers of this Blog.

Many thanks to you & also to everyone else who has given their support throughout the past, tough year. I just hope that 2010 proves to be a bit easier financially.

Ozzy on Autumnwatch

I don't know how many of you watch Autumnwatch Unsprung, but if you were watching last night you would have seen Ozzy the skunk live on national TV. We arrived at the studios about two & a half hours before we went on (don't quite know why we had to be so early) & everyone wanted to see her so she spent all that time lapping up all the attention. She behaved impecably......until Kate Humble asked to hold her when we were live. She promptly pooped all over Kate! That is why they say you should never work with children or animals. I think that is the end of Ozzy's TV career!