Happy mouse saved from a cat and recovered at Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue x

Happy mouse saved from a cat and recovered at Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue x

Gull who thinks she's a human

Gull who thinks she's a human. This little movie shows a group of gulls, one of whom thinks she's a person. this is because she's been reared at home by a well meaning person who treated her a pet. When she got too big to keep in a kitchen they brought her to us.... but it was too late to undo that crucial 'early learning'. The gull is desperate to get to the human filming her.... rather than hanging out happily (like the other gulls in the background) with her own kind. At Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue, we always try to rear baby animals in the company of their own kind and tempting though it is, we don't handle them or cosset them. Our care is 'deft', we go in, clean, feed, provide shelter, fresh water and leave them to socialise with eachother. That way they fly off as a flock, ready to be birds, rather than trying to be close to people, which can be very bad news, a behaviour that can last the animal's lifetime, in the case of a gull, perhaps 30 years. This little bird did fly off with the others in the end and we didn't see her again... so fingers-crossed she lived a long and happy life in the skies above Hereford x

To all those gardening during lockdown: You cannot have hedgehogs and immaculate gardens

You cannot have hedgehogs,
And immaculate gardens.
Hedgehogs need shelter
Of thorns gone feral.
Leaves piled in insect-
sheltering corners.
Hedgehogs will not live
where decking meets astroturf.
Where no tree dumps its
Spiral sticky seeds on your
chemically clean car.
Hedgehogs need to tuck in
Behind a shed decorated with ivy.
They need, plants touching plants
in intimate borders.
Structure and shape to make
their maternal bed.

If you were a hedgehog,
where, in your garden,
would you sleep all winter,
or a single night?

What can the worm,
whom the hedgehog eats,
feast on, if no leaves litter your
strip of green?

there are few things
more evil than plastic grass,
hideous, vicious, life-denying
Before you rip up
patches of nettles,
know that there the butterfly eggs lie,
or thickening tree roots,
where the robin and toad hide.
Don't ask where the hedgehogs have gone,
when you pull every strand of
life-giving green from the soil,
remember that ecology
took a long time to make
the connection it lives by
so wildlife needs the plants it
evolved alongside
and not that pot of hybrid
you bought online,
hedgehogs have gone because we
took away their livelihood.
Give it back, cover the soil,
let the wild plants grow.

Are Animals Dirty?

Are Animals Dirty?

People often make disparaging remarks about animals being dirty or filthy, but is this is fact the case? As someone who daily for a decade has encountered up to thirty different kinds of animal poo, I feel equipped to answer this question. Running a rescue centre, I clean the living quarters of animals as diverse as foxes, ducklings and donkeys. Almost all the mammals we work with make a special area within their enclosure where they go to the toilet. This would be in the wild called a latrine. Our Donkeys, Portia and Sidney, poo together on a pile. This a social activity for the donkeys and allows them to communicate and bond. Our resident Fox, Ronan, poos on a pile of bark chippings on a specially covered litter tray. The rest of his enclosure is more or less immaculate. Our weasel, too, poos in a chosen corner or his large cage, and his bed is always free of faeces and urine. Even our hare uses a toilet.

The animals which get most stick for being dirty are perhaps pigs. Wild pigs species search the ground for food, digging up grubs and roots. They use their snouts to do this. When confined in a small area, pigs dig up the soil and in rainy countries make a terrible mess. Pigs in the wild would never do this as they have infinite space to roam in. Think about it. When you visit a woodland with wild pigs, or even deer or foxes, or birds, there isnt poo everywhere. The reason we think animals are dirty is because we lock them in with their poo. Even in captivity pigs given enough space, pigs will never poo in their beds. Our pigs' bed is always full of clean dry straw, not because we clean them all the time, but because the pigs keep them like that.

Parents of baby songbirds remove the faeces of their young using their beak. The droppings come out encased in sacs with a convenient tear shape forming a handle which the parent picks up and drops away from the nest immediately it comes out. Thus, when we are feeding baby sparrows, starling, chaffinches, robin and other songbirds in our rescue centre, we clean the nests of the babies each time we feed, possibly every hour, replacing the paper towels they are sat in. If we do not do this, the animals may get skin infections or other diseases and die.

Some animals, such a ducks, are very difficult to keep clean in captivity. herbivores produce more faeces than other carnivorous animal because the food contains ;less protein so they must eat continually to get enough nutrition out of it.  The more that goes in at the mouth end, the more comes out at the other end. This means geese, ducks, swans, rabbits, hare, guinea pigs etc, produce a lot of poo and need cleaning a lot. Now think of a duckling, a rabbit or a swan in the wild. They move constantly over the ground, grazing. This means that their faeces is cleaned up by rain and soil organisms as they go. When an animal lays a deposit on the ground in the wild, Nature of course has its own systems for removing this. Many tiny animals called detritivores, literally consume the poo making it into harmless and unsmelly soil. The grazer doed not stay in one place (as in a cage) pooing where they stand. This is unnatural and something we have created.


Animal which are kept in conditions which are inappropriate such as never cleaned, cleaned infrequently, or too small, as in many intensive farms or in hutches and cage, end up having no choice but to poo in their bed. This no doubt causes great distress to animals which would otherwise always live in clean environments. Interestingly, I have noticed that animals kept in cramped conditions when you are less likely to develop clean habits when grown. However, other animals can teach younger animals better habits. I have seen this with donkeys. As a general rule we clean each animal every day.


I have seen in the field, that some colonial species such as pigeons, herons and sea birds festoon their nesting areas with faeces but this is very much teh exception rather than the rule. To answer the question are animals dirty, the answer from someone who has worked intimately with animals daily all her life, is NO! And if you have created a scenario where an animal is living in its own mess, this may well be your fault. Try to alter the husbandry to give the animal a chance to keep its home clean. you and the animals will b a lot happier.

working dog

Ruby came into my life after two relationships which I had which were abusive in very different ways. She came as a protection dog for me as but she first lifted my PTSD by being such a clown as a puppy that I simply HAD to laugh. Sometimes, such as when my friend lost her partner in a road traffic accident, dogs are the only reason people have to get up in the morning. Their therapeutic connection with people is really under valued and unlimited. In the US there is a charity that puts dobermans with survivors of sexual assault and abuse. They are such intensely sensitive dogs, with a touch of fire which make you feel safe. They are naturally suspicious and do not much like strangers, but once you are in the inner circle they have an intense sense of loyalty which in my experience even supercedes that of the super dog - the collie. They never leave your side, not even when you try to go to the loo. The sense of security this brings is very strong.I

 have had old and cronky dogs,
dogs which smelled and were not
such a pretty picture
and I loved them all the same.

I have dogs which could barely walk,
dogs I had to lift out of my car
dogs with rheumatic joints
I carried round in a sling

dogs who broke my heart
when with the help of a patient vet
they went running
into the great unknown

this dog is a great beauty,
but this is not her main duty
this dog has a job,
she is my shadow

this dog got me off my knees
this dog made my life worth living
when human beings
broke me.

be in no doubt this
is a working dog
not just a pretty picture,
I owe her every day