Redwings Oxhill
We had a great day there today. Redwings does some fantastic work with rescuing horses. We had a chance to go and visit the animals before we settled down to selling books. We were right opposite the quarantine stable and the young man housed there was very demanding of our attention. He will be out of quarantine soon – just one more round of blood tests and “pooh” examination and then he’ll go into a paddock with some other horses.
“High time!” you can almost hear him thinking. He “chatted” to us almost all the time we were there.
The animals at Redwings are a little different from the ones in Gentle Footprints and from the ones that Born Free normally supports. They have been farm or domestic animals and they have been ill-treated or abandoned or have become too ill for their previous owners to look after them. Sometimes the owners themselves have become too old, too infirm or too poor to care for them. Redwings is very keen to provide every animal in its care with the five freedoms:
1. Freedom from hunger and thirst
2. Freedom from discomfort
3. Freedom from pain, injury and disease
4. Freedom to express normal behaviour
5. Freedom from fear and distress
Born Free also stresses the importance of these five freedoms.
As you walk around the pens, paddocks and stables at Redwings, you can see how the staff there have attempted to provide those freedoms. It’s important for our equine friends also to have companionship and shelter. These help to provide the freedom from fear and distress and the freedom from discomfort. It soon became clear that most of the clients were housed with suitable friends.
We had a steady trickle of visitors to our stable and we were able to tell them about the aims of Gentle Footprints, the aims of Born Free and how our book was also supporting Redwings. We signed a heap of books and gave out several postcards as well.
The day had been billed as a fun activity day for children. There was a lot going on apart from our book signing. The youngsters loved the postcards. Their parents and some of the more regular visitors took an interest in the book. Not everyone we spoke to took a copy of the book, - they often had several children in tow and were already spending quite a bit on lunches and the other activities. I really believe, however, we have sown the seeds of an interest in the book… and if it appears again in the run up to Christmas, as I’m sure it will …. Redwings and Born Free are going to benefit again.