We are in a desperate situation – current restrictions in France along with some major expenses that we can’t avoid have put us into a crisis.

PLEASE HELP – we need to raise a minimum of €18,000 to keep the sanctuary afloat and keep our 150+ souls safe and well.

Rather than running separate campaigns as was our original intention, we have put everything together to try to be completely transparent and clear about the scale of the problem.

The money is required for the following urgent activities –

1 -          Buying food in bulk for delivery – we are under heavily restricted movement, and poor availability is driving up prices. We can't let our animals starve - €2000

2 -          Our beautiful cow Duchess has just been diagnosed with cancer of the eye. We need to fund her care and keep her free from pain - €2000 needed to start a fund, final costs still unknown

3 -          The recently rescued Guinea Pigs included many who are pregnant, and we are currently trying to build appropriate shelter, feed them to build up their strength and give appropriate medical treatment to a herd of 68 (and growing) - €4500

4 -          Our 6 large rescue dogs have to be moved to new facilities we need to build at the rear of the property. They currently like to hang out at the front of our property, but if we don’t move them we risk them being removed due to noise complaints or being poisoned due to constant persecution by our neighbours. - €3500

5 -          Move a stream underground that is flowing through our land, under orders of the environmental police. If this work is not carried out, we will be heavily fined and our Vietnamese pigs will be sent to slaughter due to fear of possible water contamination downstream.  - €6000

 We are living in unprecedented times, and we are very aware that everyone is facing big challenges personal to their own situations. Whatever you can donate will be gratefully received, and if you can’t donate please share far and wide.

If you require more information about any of the work we have to fund, or other ways to help us,  please contact us via this gofundme page.
See below for more details on some of these projects - 

1 - Buy bulk food for delivery

In a 'normal' month we get through about €1800 worth of food a month. We are restricted on when we can leave the sanctuary to get supplies, and our normal sources are seeing items run out of stock due to the breakdown in the supply chain, and prices are increasing. We hope that we can order in a month's supply with €2000 just to help us ride out the worst of the situation.

2 - Care for Duchess, recently diagnosed with eye cancer

The beautiful Duchess is a survivor of an organic dairy farm, arriving to us emaciated and with broken bones. Over the last few years we have nursed back to full health, so we are devastated about this diagnosis. It is difficult to get a total price on her care at the moment, but we know it will not be cheap and want to have funds available as soon as the vet is able to start treating her.

3 - Provide shelter and medical treatment for 68+ Guinea Pigs  

The estimated costs including building fox proof shelters, worming treatments and castrations is 4500 euros

Due to a neglect/hoarding case, we have just taken in a large herd of rescued guinea pigs.  Even though this is a big undertaking for us, if we had not stepped in the owner was going to release them into the wild where they would have been picked up by predators or died from starvation, exposure or disease. They have arrived in an awful state, and we are busy getting them split into single sex groups, starting treatment and feeding them properly. We have to house them, castrate them, give them a good diet and provide medical treatment until we can safely rehome as many as possible.

Our ultimate plan is to re-home the guinea pigs, but that will take time as there are a lot of them, they need to be brought up to good health and we will need to check who is adopting them as it is not uncommon for people to eat them or feed them to their snakes. If we can’t re-home them, they will stay safe with us for as long as they live.

Estimated costs are 1365 euro for shelter, 145 euro for fox proof base. 80 euro for worming treatments and tonics, and 2910 euro for castrations.

4-Build a new compound and house for our 6 large rescue dogs at the rear of property.

The estimated costs including materials and labour is 3500 euros
They currently spend a lot of time chilling at the front of the property (when not out for their long walks!), but this puts them at risk as we have found foreign objects and bones thrown into their current run, and our not so friendly neighbours provoke them which has led to noise complaints. If we do not rehouse them at the back of the property we risk them being removed or worse still poisoned.
Costs includes safe, easy clean cement floor, guard fence, access gate, repair to outhouse roof that will serve as large sleeping accommodation. Ramp for access. Stable split level door as entrance to cooler room for the blistering hot summers. Large load washing machine for the constant washing we need to do for bedding and towels for 6 large, furry dogs (plus our other animals)!

5- Divert stream going through the property to stop our Vietnamese pigs going to slaughter

This work needs to be done to a high standard to get signed off, so the estimated cost is 6000 euros

We are under constant attack from our neighbours, (both verbal attacks on us and physical damage to our property) and their recent gift to us was to report us to the environmental police. They told us that we couldn’t allow our cows to drink out of our pond and stream, but when we pointed out that upstream and downstream that is what the farmers do, the focus turned to our pigs and possible pollution to the water source. They also pointed out that the stream does not show on local maps (a mistake) and therefore has to be ‘hidden’.

We therefore have to divert and hide a stream that has been going through our property for over a century. If we don’t do this, not only are we facing a fine but we will have nowhere to keep our happy family of Vietnamese pigs and they will have to be removed from our property immediately.

Work includes digging out the pond to make it deeper, lay underground pipes for the stream to run through and demolishing and rebuilding a gateway onto our land. We have to use professionals to do this to reach minimum acceptable standards – cost of digger hire, driver and tubing is 5430 euros. Reseeding, new gate and extra tubing for entrance is 570 euro, giving a minimum total for this project of 6000 euro