On 19th April a dear little lamb, Sunshine (now known as Sunny), joined Fleecehaven. In his short eight week life he had already endured a miraculous journey. He had originally been acquired to be fattened for the freezer, but his front legs were deformed and he had great difficulty walking. The farmer who owned him was treat-ing him for joint-ill. However, his attempts to 'get him good' failed and he decided to dispose of him. Thankfully Trish, who lived next

to the farm, knew about the lamb and said that she would take him on and give him a chance. Whilst he was with her he was assessed by a vet who thought that the lamb may have been premature and, as a result, his ligaments had not fully formed and needed to be stretched. However, he ultimately felt that the lamb should just be taken to the hunt. Trish ignored this advice and acquired an appro-priate splint and antibiotics from her veterinary practice. A few days later, Trish contacted Fleecehaven initially for advice,

and then asked if we would be willing to take him on. Thanks to her care Sunny’s legs were show-ing signs of improvement and splinting had definitely helped him. However, Trish wanted him to be with other sheep and some-where where he could be given the specialist care that he was going to need. We prepared our utility room for him and arrangements were made for us to collect him. Once with us we arranged for our vet to assess Sunny, who con-firmed the initial diagnosis of joint-ill. He was taken to the veterinary hospital where he had his knee joint flushed out with saline and antibiotics and then his leg was splinted. He was then put onto a strong course of IV antibiotics to help tackle the infection that had taken hold within the joint. Thank-fully Sunny seemed none the worse for wear as a result of this treatment and once home enjoyed tucking into a basket of hay whilst sporting a rather fetching blue splint!

Inside this Issue:

Hello Sunshine!

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Volume 8 Issue 3

Spring/Summer 2015

Hello Sunshine continued

Meet the Zwartbles

Hansel and Gretel Gallery

Lucky, Rustle and Granny

Gracie

Thank Ewe

Freddie - last one in

Calendars & Cards

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Over a three week period our vet visited Sunny on a regular basis, flushing his joint out and injecting antibiotics directly into the joint. Slowly the joint swelling started to reduce and he was able to start taking more weight on his leg. Continued on Page 2

Page 2 FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

This enabled us to let him into the garden for short periods of exercise, allowing him to build the strength up in his leg slowly. It was lovely to watch him skipping around for a few minutes and, for the first time, behaving as you would expect a lamb to behave. How-ever, we were conscious that he really could do with another lamb for company and kept hoping that another rescued lamb would come our way - little did we know then that within just a few weeks five further lambs

would be joining him! In the meantime he enjoyed playing with his two legged friend, Henry. Sunny continues to do really well. He now enjoys roaming the fields with his new friends but has never lost the tameness that he gained during the first few weeks of his life and he loves nothing more than having ears tickled and his back scratched!

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Meet the Zwartbles On 25th April the most beautiful group of sheep joined the Fleecehaven flock. They are absolutely adorable and a real credit to Mari-anne who initially rescued them from slaugh-ter in late August of last year. She had res-cued them from a farmer who was planning to put them in his freezer because they all had severe mastitis and were no longer deemed suitable for breeding. Thankfully Marianne took them on, with her landlord agreeing that she could keep just four sheep in the field that she rented for her horses. All four quick-

ly settled into their new life and became much loved members of Marianne's menager-ie of rescued animals. Unfortunately, and much to everyone's sur-prise, the ewes started to lamb on New Year’s Day. Marianne and her family did an amazing job with their miracle lambs and despite the odds all but one of the lambs sur-vived. It was quite shocking to think that their young lives would have been ended before they’d even begun had their mothers been slaughtered in the summer. Despite their elation at bringing the lambs safely into the world, Marianne and her family became increasingly concerned about whether or not they would be able to keep them as their flock had doubled in size. Sadly this became the case and with a heavy heart Marianne contacted Fleecehaven to ask if we could take in four of the sheep. Marianne agonised over which combination of ewes and/or lambs to Continued on Page 3

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keep and in the end decided that, although it would be incredibly hard to say goodbye to any of them, it was in their best interests to keep them together as a family unit; Mary and Berrie, the grannies; Daisy and Maisie, the daughters; and Jemima, George, Mildred and Ronnie, the lambs. We prepared our red barn for the group so that they could be kept separated whilst un-dergoing a vaccination programme. Because of the size of the group we also penned off an additional grazing area. However, it was not long before they had the freedom of the fields and they were able to start exploring their new home. The group are now completely settled and very much part of the Fleecehaven flock. However, they are never far away from one

another and remain together as a family unit. Each and everyone of the group is adorable - thank you so much Marianne for giving these beautiful sheep a chance to live - they will be forever indebted to your loving care.

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Hansel and Gretel On the 16th May, Sunny finally had two new playmates! Hansel and Gretel had both been rejected by their mothers at birth and were being bottle fed by Trish who had brought Sunny to us. She knew that we were looking for a companion for Sunny and asked if we would take them which, of course, we agreed to do. Gretel was just four days old, whilst Hansel was six days old - being Shetland /Dorest Down cross lambs they were both tiny and seemed so fragile alongside Sunny who was growing steadily and becoming more robust by the day. Hansel and Gretel joined Sunny in the utility room. Initially they slept in a cage to keep them safe and ensure that Sunny wasn’t too

boisterous with them. Being so young they needed to be bottle fed little and often but both were incredibly good lambs and once settled with a last feed at about midnight, we didn’t hear another peep from then until their 6am feed. Hansel and Gretel are both thriving now. Thanks to Sunny they’ve had a lucky twist of fate and can now live out their natural lives at Fleecehaven.

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Late Spring and Summer Gallery

FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

Romeo

Gorgeous George

Shaun

Henry

Hay delivery straight from the field

Skittles

Woody

Daisy with George and Mildred

Happy sheep!

Harvey nibbling on a straw bale

Snowflake

VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3 Page 5

Gracie helping to make the milk

One boy and his lamb

Tigger

A glorious spring morning

Murphy

Enjoying the sunshine

Off out for the day!

Roo Kylie

Percy Lamborghini

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Lucky, Rustle and Granny

Having declared months ago that there was no more room at the inn, three further sheep joined us on the 17th May!! Two of them were destined for slaughter in time for Rama-dan and the other, a lamb, would have ulti-mately met a similar fate. A week earlier, we had been approached by the wife of a farmer within the North Devon area who had a rather special sheep called Lucky. As a lamb he had got stuck on his back in the fields and the crows had pecked at his right eye. He was put on antibiotics and, apart from losing the sight in his right eye, made a full recovery. At this point it was assumed that he was a she and ‘she’ was put in with the ewe lambs to be kept back for breeding. However, when the farmer was sorting the lambs out he noticed Lucky hav-ing a wee and discovered that she was actual-ly a he. Sadly he was then put in with the fat lambs to go off to market, but each time he was due to go there was a reason why he couldn’t; either he was lame, or the truck broke down or he just went missing and this continued for nearly two years! By this time the farmer’s wife had become very fond of him but her husband was insisting that he went to slaughter as he wasn’t productive and with Ramadan looming he was destined for halal slaughter unless he could be re-homed. Although absolutely full to capacity (and beyond) we agreed to take Lucky on. When we went to collect Lucky we were also offered a lamb, Rustle, as a companion for

Sunny. She was a similar age to Sunny and was also suffering from joint-ill and being bottle fed. Although we had just tak-en on Hansel and Gretel it

was going to be sometime before they were big enough to play with Sunny so, of course, we agreed. Just as we were about to leave

the lady said, ‘I don’t suppose you want to take her too do you? She’s Granny – she’s old and off for Ramadan as well?’ There was no way we were going to refuse her and within a few minutes she was bundled into the back of the car and on her way to Fleecehaven, somewhat bewildered and total-ly unaware of how lucky she was! It turns out that she also has her own special story but we’ll save that for our next newsletter! On arrival at Fleecehaven, Lucky and Granny went into one of our emergency stables that Emma and Anne had prepared for Lucky. After a few days they moved into a penned

off area in the field where they had access to a shelter and once they had completed their vaccination programme they were fully integrated into the flock.

Granny now looks like a different sheep, she has put on weight and is in really good condi-tion. She and Lucky are real characters and never far away from one another. Rustle joined Sunny, Hansel and Gretel in the increasingly cramped utility room but quickly decided that he was really a dog and moved in with our ’goldies’ for a while. However, he is now very much one of the ‘gang’ in our lamb brigade and he and Sunny have formed a really special bond. Farming is a cruel industry but we will be forever in-debted to the farmer’s wife for taking pity on these beautiful animals and allowing us the opportunity to provide them with all the love and care that they need during the rest of their natural life.

FLEECEHAVEN NEWS

Lucky and Granny on arrival

Rustle making herself at home

Thank Ewe

Late at night on the 17th May, 'Gracie' was brought to us, a dear little lamb no more than a week old. She had been found on Dartmoor, close to death and without any other sheep around her. She was riddled with parasites and bleeding from a wound on her back. Just after midnight we took her to our vet who gave her antibiotics, pain relief and treated her for her tick infestation. We took her home, not sure whether or not she would make the night. Thankfully her pitiful face greeted us the next morning and it became clear that her desire to live was as great as our desire to help her live. A further visit to the our vet that morning and a closer examination of her wounds revealed that they were likely to have been caused by a dog. Our vet decid-ed against stitching the wounds, instead al-lowing them to heal naturally but gave her further antibiotic cover and pain relief. Gracie was extremely emaciated and our next challenge was to try and get her taking milk. At first she was very reluctant, but little-by-

little she learnt to suck from the teat and once she started taking milk she became just a tiny bit stronger each and every hour. All we could do was hope that our care for her would enable her to find the strength necessary to overcome the ordeal that she has endured. Just a few days later the poor little mite was diagnosed with orf, a virus not dissimilar to

chicken pox. The pustules in her mouth made it increasingly difficult for her to bottle feed but slowly she recovered and continued to make steady progress and we all began to quietly hope that she might just make it. At the beginning of July Gracie became very poorly; she had an extremely high tempera-ture, dreadful diarrhoea and stopped taking her milk. We called our vet immediately and a dung sample diagnosed her with coccidio-sis, a parasitic disease of the intestinal tract that can be fatal in young animals with a com-promised immune system, which of course Gracie had because of the orf and tic infesta-tion. She was heavily dosed with anti-inflammatory, antibiotics and vecoxan, a drug to treat the coccidiosis. The other lambs were also treated with vecoxan as coccidiosis is extremely contagious. After a week or so Gracie finally turned the corner and since then she has just gone from strength-to-

strength. Gracie has certainly been very challenging but we are just thankful that she was found and brought to us - fingers crossed that she continues to do well and goes on to lead a full and happy life with the Fleecehaven flock.

VOLUME 8, ISSUE 3 Page 7

Thank you so much to Di Trinder, Helen Waterman and Deb-bie Rushton for their incredible fund-raising over the summer. We really are extremely grateful for your support. Thank you also to everyone who supported their events - Di’s 100 days of abstinence from drinking alcohol; Helen’s mammoth adven-ture on the trail of Shaun the Sheep in London and Bristol; and Debbie’s incredible cake sale that was match funded by her employer, NATS. Thank ewe, thank ewe, thank ewe!

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‘Promoting humane behaviour towards animals by providing care, protection, treatment and

security’

Fleecehaven Howley Park East Buckland North Devon EX32 0TD

01598 760454 admin@fleecehaven.org.uk www.fleecehaven.org.uk

Registered Charity No 1111004

Freddie - last one in!

On the 13th June another lost little soul was brought to us. He had been found collapsed with no obvious sign of other sheep around him or any houses within the locality. He was painful-ly thin and had a suspected broken leg. He also had flystrike and really was in a pitiful condiditon. We took him straight to our vet who carefully examined him. Thankfully his leg was not broken, just very badly injured. He was given anti-inflammatory and his blood was taken to see if he had any underlying problems. The main concern was to get him feed-ing as he was so incredibly thin and had clearly not eaten for quite some time. Little by little we managed to get him taking some milk and gradually he started to nibble on some hay. A week later he was looking considerably better but then he suffered a set-back with the diagnosis of joint-ill. He was treated with antibiotics and given pain relief and gradually the swelling in the joint reduced. His blood results also indi-cated possible liver damage which was probably caused by the malnutrition that he had suffered. Fortunately this does not seem to be causing him any problems at the moment and his bloods will be periodically repeated to monitor the condition of his liver over time. Unfortunately, towards the end of July Freddie suffered another set-back with joint-ill but once again antibiotic and anti-inflammatory treatment brought it back under control. Freddie is now really thriving and has grown into the most beautiful ted-

dy bear of a sheep - he is a great character and we are so thankful that he was found and brought to us.

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Calendars and Cards

The 2016 Fleecehaven Calendar is now on sale via our website at the cost of £10 + p&p. We are also selling packs of 4 high-quality, 5” x 7” glossy Christmas cards. These cost £4.50 + p&p per assorted pack of 4 or £20 + p&p per assorted pack of 20. If you are unable to order

on-line you can also order by post - just pop a cheque in the post (made payable to Fleecehaven) together with a note of your requirements. Postage is charged at £2.75 for orders up to £20 and £4.50 for orders above £20.