As well as all of the normal tasks like feeding, checking and cleaning  all of the animals, its a non stop battle to keep the animals with fresh unfrozen water. All of the rabbits water bottles and animals drinkers have to be defrosted twice a day.

When the ground is frozen, there’s nothing for the horses, ponies, sheep and Boris the bull to eat, so we consume huge amounts of very expensive hay.

On a week day when we are working, its a very early and very cold start to get all of the animals sorted in time to travel off to work, when we return, it starts all over again.

We have been working very hard raising the funds for this vital work, now with £8,000 raised so far, we are able to start the first stage.

Now the the garage has been divided up into two main rooms and a store, the electrician has first fixed the wiring. This week the installation of the doors and windows was completed. Thanks to Acorn Windows who offered us a discount, helping the charities money go further.

We still need another £5,000 to complete the works, once finished we will have an amazing first class facility for the diagnosis and treatment of wild animals, as well as for rearing orphaned baby birds and mammals..

If you can help us by making a financial donation, please click on the link below, without support from the public, we can not carry out this vital work.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE ON LINE OR;

Or Send a cheque payable to Brinsley Animal Rescue to;

69 Hobsic Close

Brinsley

Nottingham

NG16 5AX

Our thanks go to;

Acorn Windows of Wolloton Nottingham have very kindly offered to supply the windows and doors for our hospital at costs and fitted free, we are extremely grateful which means the charities funds will go further.

243 Trowell Road

Wolloton

Nottingham

NG8 2EP

(0115) 9287984

2 years old

Neutered and vaccinated for myxi

Bugsy is such a lovely boy.  He was so frightened when he first came into us and would hide at every opportunity.  He has come on a lot since then and adores a rub of his ears.  He spends so much time in a dog bed filled with hay and is a little creature of habit.  He likes routine and is very tidy.  When Bugsy came to us he had back dental problems and had to have dental treatment.  However, after a year he has had to have no further treament but as he isn’t a great hay eater he may need further dental treament in the future.

The term ‘breeding like rabbits’ has a lot of truth! Sadly by the time many people have realised this it is far too late.  A female rabbit has the ability to become pregnant again straight after she has given birth.  The gestation of a rabbit is only approximately 30 days so perhaps you can see the problem that arises time and time again when rabbits are wrongly sexed. Rabbits are notoriously difficult to sex and many pet shops get it wrong.  More often than not that pet shop is PETS AT HOME.  We have had yet another call today of them WRONGLY SEXING RABBITS and the caller had ended up with not only an unwanted litter but a pregnant doe straight away.  If this pet shop can’t sex animals properly then they SHOULDN’T BE SELLING THEM! This is the second call this week where this chain store has wrongly sexed rabbits.  We thought after meeting with one of their directors things were improving but sadly not.  They still give terrible advice on neutering, diet and still sell living accommodation that is not fit for purpose.

We have a LOT of bunnies all needing good homes.  At Brinsley Animal Rescue we rehome our bunnies responsibly.  We neuter, vaccinate for myxi (there are wild rabbits with myximitosis around at the moment so ALL rabbits should be vaccinated against this dreadful disease as a matter of urgency). We also carry out home checks to make sure our bunnies are going to fabulous homes.

We do ask for minimum donations to try and cover our costs.

Female spayed and myxi vaccinated £60 each

Male neutered and myxi vaccinated £55 each

Pair or trio of  neutered and myxi vaccinated bunnies £75.

As you can see we offer a huge saving for adopters as neutering a male rabbit is approx £55 and spaying a female is approx £70.  Vaccinating is approx £15-£20.  We also give a huge saving for those adopting pairs of bunnies as so many of our already bonded beautiful pairs get overlooked.

We do have far more bunnies than feature on our website because each bunny has a minimum of 4 weeks here whilst they are neutered, vaccinated and some females that could potentially be pregnant have 30 days to wait so that we can make sure they aren’t pregnant.

PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T SUPPORT PET SHOPS THAT SELL ANIMALS. THERE ARE SO MANY ANIMALS IN RESCUE CENTRES THAT DESERVE A GOOD HOME.

7 months old

Neutered and vaccinated for myxi.

Fraser is the tidiest bunny in the world!  He always uses his litter tray and never feels the need to dismantle his cage or tip up his food bowl.  For this reason he would make a really good house bunny. Fraser desperately needs a friend.  He came in with his brothers but developed a lot quicker and started to squabble so had to be seperated.  Ordinary looking black bunnies are so often overlooked and Fraser has been here for several months and is ready for a loving home and some bunny company.

18 months and 5 months old

Rowan spayed, Teasel not yet spayed.  Both vaccinated for myxi.

These 2 bunnies are an adorable pair.  Teasel is a little digger and loves to keep herself occupied by none stop tunnelling in the lawn.  They both like to snuggle up to each other and groom each other. They are a comical pair who always seem to look busy and will need lots of things to do in their new home.  They would benefit from lots of room as they love to run round and jump on top of things.  They both have nice temperaments and are quite confident bunnies.

18 months old

Vaccinated, not yet neutered

Maya was an ex-breeders rabbit.  Considering her past life she has a nice nature and in time would make a lovely pet with someone that has the time for her.  She really needs a neutered male companion.  Have you got a lonely buck who she spend the rest of her life with?

3 years old

Vaccinated, not yet neutered

Saffy was an ex-breeders rabbit.  She has a nice nature and loves a fuss.  She would really like a lifelong companion who she can snuggle up to.

The local villagers were obviously concerned when he hadn’t left after a week, and tried to call the RSPCA with little response. Eventually we received a call, how could we not try and help?

After a few days with us to assess his health, we gave him the all clear today and then released him, in a location with other single swans where he’ll hopefully find a partner.

Can you offer a loving environment, a life-long home that these cats haven’t received from their past owners? We will always neuter, worm, vaccinate and micro-chip.

We have 3 male kittens, 2 tabby and 1 back, as well as two tabby adults, a male and female.

In the year, we have admitted 857 animals, a full breakdown of all animals can be found on our website, in summary these are;

• We took in 131 pets and re-homed 89 into life-long homes
• Cared for 488 farm animals, including over 300 ex- battery chickens destined for slaughter
• We rescued 7 ponies and a horse, re-homing 4 of them
• We have taken in 4 pigs and re-homed 7
• Taken in 239 wild animals (169 birds and 70 mammals). Of these over 100 have been released back into the wild

We are always full at the sanctuary, unfortunately we turn animals away every day of the week. In our care we have;

• 9 Pigs
• 6 ponies
• 1 horse
• 1 bull
• 6 Sheep
• 4 geese
• 100+ chickens & 12 Cockerels
• 5 hedgehogs
• 30 wild birds
• 31 rabbits
• 4 Ducks
• 2 mice

Successes

• We have had two successful open days, with over 1600 visiting us and raising over £7,000
• The Charity Shop Expectations opened, raising over £4,000 for us
• We received planning permission to build a wild animal hospital

Highlights

January

We were on BBC1 Inside Out, covering the trend of so called `Micro-Pigs’ and the resultant escalation in people wanting to give them up. This year hardly a week has gone by without us receiving a call to take on more. In fact in November, we received requests to take on 14 in one week alone! Every one was turned down, we can only do so much.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/01/26/24-jan-at-730-pm-see-our-pig-rescue-on-bbc1-inside-out/

February

Gerard and Walter, two Pot Bellied pigs that had been with us for three years, had finally been re-homed.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/02/13/gerard-walter-move-to-their-new-home/

March

We rescued another 3 Dartmoor Ponies destined to be slaughtered for pet food. All three were wormed, vaccinated, gelded and slowly turned into tame ponies before being rehomed.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/03/19/urgent-dartmoor-pony-appeal/

April

We took in three fox cubs in April that were hand reared and 2 were later released in the Autumn.  Although animal rescue brings many highs there are also many, many lows and Daisy the fox cub was no exception.  She came in as a tiny fox cub and our trustee and vet nurse Keyley took her on when it became apparent that Daisy did not interact with the other cubs and had neuroligical problems.  Keyley spent hours and hours nursing Daisy and hand rearing her but eventually had to make the heart wrenching decision to put Daisy to sleep.

May

We rescued ex-battery hen number 200.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/05/21/battery-hen-rescue-5/

June

We were busy hand rearing dozens of animals, including this little hoglet.  The hand rearing season runs from February through to September and seems to get longer and more demanding every year.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/06/08/baby-hoglets/

July

During a 3 hour rescue, the Fire Brigade helped us release this huge hedgehog that had fallen into an open pipe and trapped for several days. We treated him for dehydration and released him a few weeks later in a safer place.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/07/10/epic-hedgehog-rescue/

August

We took in more kittens and cats (11 kittens and two cats), some were actually dumped on our doors step, whilst we were at work! Although our planning permission does not permit us to take in cats we know that cat rescue centres were absolutely full to capacity with huge waiting lists so we had no choice but to get the latest waifs and strays combi-tested, wormed, vaccinated, microchipped and neutered.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/08/21/kittens-kittens-kittens/

October

We rescued Shaunie the lamb, he was born with a deformed leg, he will now never see a slaughterhouse, but live life to the full.

http://brinsleyanimalrescue.org/2011/10/30/shaunie-our-rescue-disabled-ram/

November

Our Winter Open Day was a great success, we hope to see you at our next open day on 12 August 2012.

Yet again we have had to take in 4 very frightened kittens that were dumped in a box in a shop in Eastwood.  Fortunately one of our volunteers saw them as she happened to be in the shop at the time.  This very sad scenario is happening more and more frequently and it is just a very sorry state of affairs that people cannot be bothered to get their animals neutered.  We have now got to find the time and money to get these latest waifs and strays vaccinated, wormed, deflead, health checked and neutered.  These poor kittens are not in the best of health and it may take some weeks before they will be ready.  They have not been handled at all and are still very frightened of humans.

They still have blue eyes and should be with their mother.  Sadly we do not know of her whereabouts and she is probably roaming around unneutered and will probably be bringing more unwanted kittens into the world.

Santa and his elf made a special appearance and the rain seemed to hold off. We have managed to raise nearly £2,500 during the day and we met lots of lovely people.

We absolutely cannot continue to run the charity without raising vital funds like this.  Holding open days and fund raisers takes an awful lot of work and coordination and this morning when we saw the weather we were worried that people simply wouldn’t turn up. We are overwhelmed by the support that we have had and the distance that some people had travelled.  A massive thank you to everyone!

Hopefully we’ll see you at the big Summer Open day on 12 August 2012.

Visitors watch a video display of BAR achievements

Runaway Rocky is enticed back through the gate by his favourite, bananas.

Identify the bird to which each egg belongs.