Hello July! Where did you come from?!

This week marked 100 days since the start of the lockdown in England. I doubt few of us back then could have predicted just how much our lives were about to change.

At Redwings, we’ve done our best to quickly and continuously adapt our working practices to fall in line with Government guidance, to keep our staff safe and ensure our rescued horses and donkeys receive the care they needed.

We continue to keep a close eye on the latest announcements regarding the easing of the lockdown and are slowly bringing back services where we can. Like you, we’re looking forward to returning to some resemblance of normality, but this will take time and careful planning.  

For now, here’s a rundown of the changes due to take place:

• From next week, we’ll be advertising new rescued horses and ponies for rehoming. Having had to suspend our Guardianship Scheme at the start of the lockdown, we tentatively restarted our rehoming programme towards the end of May. Thanks to a new system of virtual home checks and trials, we were able to rehome 13 ponies in June and look forward to helping more find loving new homes outside of the Sanctuary this summer. Click here to find out more about our Guardianship Scheme and which horses and ponies are looking for new homes now. 

• This month, our vets will start working with external specialists again who regularly visited the Sanctuary prior to the lockdown. Sarcoids (a common skin tumour in horses) are diagnosed fairly frequently amongst our population of 1,500 equines and require specialist laser surgery to treat, for which we rely on an external surgeon to undertake. Our specialist surgeon will start visiting sarcoid patients - keeping in mind social distancing - again this month. Discover more about how our vets have coped throughout the lockdown by clicking here. 

• Many of our administrative staff have been working from home since the start of the lockdown, but some will be making their return to the office over the next month. Our Health & Safety team has produced a thorough risk assessment which requests all staff adhere to social distancing at all times, to disinfect desks and equipment regularly, to avoid sharing desks and to limit the number of people in communal areas, such as kitchens. Because some working spaces are quite small, rotas have been drawn up so staff will be splitting their time between working from home and in the office while social distancing measures are in place and to ensure we continue to adhere to Government guidance.

• We continue to review the reopening of our visitor centres. Please click here to read last week’s #CoronaChronicles to find out more. Thank you to everyone for your enquiries, but we continue to ask for your patience as we decide whether this would be a viable step for us at this time. We’ll bring you more news via our social media channels when we can.

While lockdown may be easing, the challenges continue. With 1,500 rescued horses and donkeys relying on us every day, we’ve always been financially prudent and are in the best position possible to weather the current storm, but if predictions about the ongoing economic impact of coronavirus are even partly true, then we are likely to face a funding deficit.

You can continue to help us by donating to our coronavirus appeal to ensure we can be there for those horses most in need, now and into the future. Click here to find out more and to make a donation. 

Thank you #RedwingsAngels