Open Day at Hillside Animal Sanctuary

We had a family day out at Hillside Animal Sanctuary; it's always a big event for us because we are all very eager to see Fergus the Highland Bull; we spearheaded a campaign to save Fergus in 2009 ( a very short campaign because we succeeded very quickly- hooray for Veggie Power!), when he was only two years old and had been living at Wandlebury Country Park in Cambridgeshire, with a herd of Highlands, rather charmlessly described by the Head Ranger as 'lawnmowers'. They'd decided that they didn't require this particular lawn mower any more and arranged to have him slaughtered. We found this out after getting chatting to the Ranger and were horrified. Luckily, at the eleventh hour, the trust who owned both Fergus and the country park were deluged with polite but outraged emails and 'phone calls, they agreed to spare Fergus. To read more about Fergus, you can read his special page 'Who is Fergus?' on our website at www.veganation.co.uk .

 Fergus now lives very happily at Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norfolk with over 1000 other rescued animals; you can visit their website at www.hillside.org.uk.
So, it's a very special thing for us to go and visit Fergus; it was very moving today, just sitting in the sun watching him graze, peering at us through his glorious curly fringe, looking so HUGE- he's filled out and matured a lot in the two and a half years that he's been at Hillside. He looks such a combination of dangerousness- his horns are absolutely huge now, and complete innocence- all Fergus wants is to be left in peace to graze and sunbathe with his family- it's all ANY cow wants, and Fergus and his small herd really are the lucky ones- they have a wonderful, caring home for the whole of their lives, thanks to Wendy Valentine and all the caring people who help her at Hillside. We took Fergus some purple carrots that we had grown in the garden and he seemed to really enjoy them- in fact when Candyfloss, one of his ladies, finally wondered over to see what he was eating, he'd finished up the whole bunch!
  We had a lovely day- it is such a rare thing for us to be able to take our children out somewhere and be able to buy them an ice cream cone! All the food available at Hillside on open days is vegan, and described as 'animal friendly' so a lot of people probably got their first taste of vegan cheese and soya milk yesterday as Wendy told us that most of the people who come to the open days are not vegan or vegetarian..
  If you'd like to help look after rescued victims of intensive farming, the few survivors of this awful industry, then please make a purchase at our vegan shop www.veganation.co.uk, from which we donate 2% of all profits to Hillside- and if you buy a packet of lemon jelly crystals this week, we'll donate an extra 25p to Fergus's carrot fund!  Or you can donate directly on Hillside's website.