The Hillside Animal Sanctuary near Norwich is home to 4,000 animals. Most of the rescued animals have been saved from the farming industry, but 2,500 horses, ponies, donkeys and mules also call Hillside home. 

As you can imagine, this is an enormous undertaking demanding a lot of resource. 

So why not help them along?  One of the things you could do is to buy a bale of hay for £5 and donate that to Hillside Animal Sanctuary.

Obviously, you don't buy the bale of hay and trot off to Hillside with it in your car decorated with a piece of red ribbon - it's all much easier than that. You "buy" it online. 

It would make a great gift both for the horses and ponies, donkeys and mules at Hillside but also for any animal lover as a Secret Santa or stocking filler. 

Give a Gift in Lieu to support the animals at the sanctuary 

You could also choose a Gift a Sack of Grass Nuts for £5.00, or Feed a Rescue Dog for a week (£10) or Give a Bale of Straw for bedding (that's £15) or donate £5 towards the Hillside Carrot Appeal; a staggering 29 tonnes of carrots are regularly delivered to Hillside during the winter to help feed the 4000 rescued animals at the Sanctuary.  That's an awful lot of carrot!

You could also adopt an anmal such as Beauty the Sheep as a gift.
Or how about Doris the duck, or Henrietta the ex-battery hen,
or alpacas Inti and Lupi, or Tessa turkey or...
there are lots to choose from!  Click here to see!
(Minimum donation £10 for a year's adoption)

Visit Hillside Animal Sanctuary's online shop here to find out about the gifts mentioned above.  They've also got Christmas cards, adoption gifts, cards, notelets, gifts for donkey lovers - so lots to choose from.

 Today, the Daily Express ran a story about a monkey sanctuary in Cornwall that is in desperate need of support.

The sanctuary is called Wild Futures.  It’s home to 40 monkeys who have been rescued from neglect and abuse from the UK’s primate pet trade.  You can find out more about Wild Futures here

It is desperately trying to raise funds to stay open.  Monthly costs are now nearly £50,000 and it is rapidly approaching a situation where, if they don’t act now, then in a few months they won’t have enough funds to continue.

The charity was founded in 1964 and it is hoping their appeal will work.  Then they can focus on a long term strategy to increase their income again and look at other ways to raise funds. Costs have gone up, such as their food and energy – they have to keep the indoor enclosures at 20C degrees for the monkeys year round.

So, ways to help Wild Futures in Cornwall:

Adopt a monkey, either for yourself or as a gift for the monkey or animal lover in your life.  You can choose from Capuchin monkeys, Woolly monkeys, Marmoset monkeys, Long-Tailed Macaques.  Good luck choosing, they all look adorable

Adoptions are one ways to support Wild Futures - this is Elvis
(and no, you can't take Elvis home!)

Check out their wish-list – is there anything you can help with? There are things on there you wouldn’t necessarily think of, such as Kong toys (all sizes), tennis balls and footballs

Support their campaign to end the keeping and trade of primates as pets. They’ve got a petition you can sign

Make a one-off or monthly donation

Do a fundraiser for them

You could "buy" the monkeys something, such as grapes - find out more here
They start at £5.00

Buy something from the monkeys for Wild Futures’ online shop – e.g. medicines, apples, grapes, enrichment toys, nuts vegetables – there’s lots to choose from.  They’ve got soft toys, too (not for the monkeys, they are for humans).

Treat yourself to their Keeper for the Day experience

Volunteer!

Spread the word

A good start is to swing over to their website to find out more.

All images ©Wild Futures

The Brooke builds a network of trained vets, animal health workers and farriers in a number of countries around the world.  They work to protect working horses, donkeys and mules from disease, injury and pain. They reach 1.6 million animals across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.  The animals are all lifelines to their owners. 

For instance, the Brooke has now reached over 9,000 horses, donkeys and mules with emergency treatment, feed and health advice in Pakistan.

Find out more about the Brooke here

To support this work, they have an online shop which is open for Christmas shopping!  And they have 12 lovely Christmas card designs for you to choose from this year – it will be hard to choose which to buy!

Take a peek at the Christmas card range from The Brooke this year.  Most designs are £4.50 per pack.  The funds raised from The Brooke Shop help The Brooke support working animals across the world.   

Click here to see the range of Virtual Gifts that The Brooke has – give more than one gift with a virtual gift! They really are win-wins!  

You can buy hard-working horses or donkeys a place to rest, a permanent water point, first aid kits, life saving food, a hoof trimming kit, online vet training, a medical kit bag or a farrier qualification.  There's lots to choose from, starting at £5.00.

Visit the Brooke's online shop here and make a difference when you do your Christmas shopping!