Disaster struck on Friday 18th February when the UK was hit by Storm Eunice. We saw hutches torn apart and blown around like dolls houses as our outdoor facilities were completely battered by the strong gusts of wind, leaving us with lots of animals stranded in temporary enclosures in the safety of the barn. The waterproofing on the barn to prevent flooding was shredded and will require a lot of work to fix.
We soon took to social media with photos of the damage left by Storm Eunice and, when checking the response just an hour later, we were blown away (no pun intended!) by the generous support and heart-warming messages left by our followers.
Over the weekend, multiple kind people from the local area came to our aid with supplies of wood and tools to help us repair hutch roofs, strengthen our remaining hutches and secure everything more firmly to the ground in case of further storms over the coming week.
Our online fundraiser hit over £1,700 and will be a massive help in buying new hutches and enclosures to replace the ones lost in the storm. A few very generous local people even offered to donate their unused hutches and even more kind people offered to collect them for us!
We are so incredibly thankful to everyone who got involved and provided support to us in such a worrying time, and we are so grateful to live in such a wonderful community of generous and kind people. We are, of course, so thankful that our animals are all OK and stayed safe in the barn.