Pet and Farm Animal Care
Volunteering with pets and farm animal is rewarding, but can be quite demanding at times, we need people who are both reliable and dependable, who are willing to turn up, work hard outside in all weathers. It doesn’t matter how cold and wet it is, the animals still rely on us to care for them.
In return you should enjoy your time with us, amongst friends and amazing animals. Whilst it is hard work, we have a volunteer room and toilet, where you can have a break, clean up and make yourself a drink.
Times – Most of the work is early morning, cleaning out aniamls and feeding, we therefore need volunteers to come early, usually around 7am but no later than 8 am. There are tasks later in the day, but much of the hard work getting animals ready in the morning would have needed to be complete.
What Will I be doing? – Most of the work is cleaning the stable yard, mucking out stables and putting in fresh bedding, cleaning out and feeding rabbits and poultry, then its time to poo pick the fields.
Do I Need Experience with Animals? – Previous experience is helpful but not essential, the most important qualities we are looking for is dependability and reliability. With our recruitment process, once inducted you will shadow one of our experienced volunteers to learn what we do and how, where everything is and our daily routines.
Short-Term Volunteering – Our volunteers have to invest a lot of time with new volunteers to reach a stage where they can work independently, this takes time and so we are not able to take on short-term volunteering. We would like persons who aim to volunteer a morning shift weekly or bi-weekly.
| Typical Times | Typical Activities |
| Fist light | – Poultry are let out and checked. – Pigs, cows, horses, goats, sheep etc are fed and checked. |
| 7 – 8 am | Main Sanctuary Volunteers Arrive |
| 7-8 am – 12:00 am | – Stable yard poo picked – Stables are cleaned out. – Yard swept – Hay feeders filled. – Clean / check / feed / water rabbits – Clean out aviaries, feed / water birds – Clean out poultry, feed / water birds – Fields are poo picked. |
| Dusk | – Poultry locked up. |
Volunteering Application Process.
The sanctuary is run by a hardcore of dedicated volunteers carrying out tasks throughout the day, every day. As the sanctuary has such a variety of different animals all having varying needs, volunteers need to have a level of experience gained over several weeks of volunteering, before they can be left unsupervised. As volunteers gain experience and gain our confidence, we reduce the supervision accordingly until they can help unsupervised on thier own or in small teams.
If you meet the criteria please complete our online Volunteer Application form then you will be added to our waiting list:
Once an opportunity becomes available you’ll be invited to a new volunteers induction, these are generally held once a month.
Following the induction, you’ll work closely with one of our experienced volunteer until you are ready to volunteer un-supervised.