03 April 2020

#CoronaChronicles: Week Two

It’s been another busy week for our equine care teams across the country as they continue to look after our 1,500 rescued residents during the coronavirus outbreak.

This is a testing time for Redwings as we face the challenge of protecting our essential veterinary staff and equine carers while ensuring our four-legged friends still receive the vital care they need.

Having outlined the measures we’d taken to safeguard our equine carers last week, this week we thought we’d explain how we’re looking out for our veterinary team too. Our plans are ever evolving as new Government guidance is announced, but our actions so far have included:

In line with guidance from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) and the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA), our veterinary team is now only undertaking emergency work and any essential, regular treatments our horses need to maintain their health.
This has allowed us to restructure our rotas so fewer team members are on site at any one time.
Where possible, veterinary staff are working “on-call” from home and are being supplied with CPD to complete.
Our equine carers and veterinary staff are now working separately to reduce the amount of interactions between different teams, and within each team, smaller sub-groups have been created to reduce interactions even further.

Elsewhere, while sadly our visitor centres are now closed to the public, the teams who care for the horses there are still ensuring they remain well looked after… and receive all the cuddles and fuss they would have lapped-up from all their fans!

The ponies at Redwings Oxhill in Warwickshire have even been reminding us about the importance of social distancing, while Adoption Star Baby Face Nelson at Redwings Aylsham in Norfolk has been making sure everyone washes their hands properly!

Our clever ponies at Redwings Oxhill and handwashing supervisor Baby Face Nelson!

Meanwhile, our donkeys and mules at Redwings Caldecott in Norfolk have been lifting the spirits of their carers. You can’t help but smile at those faces (see images at the top of the page and below)!

And finally, alongside plenty of well wishes from our amazing supporters, our care teams and horses have received some fantastic support from local businesses too!

Two Cherry Lane garden centres in Norfolk donated their bags of horse feed prior to temporarily closing their doors, while Waitrose in Norwich supplied some bags of carrots. As a result of earlier panic-buying, the supermarket had ordered a large delivery of carrots but when it became clear they wouldn’t be able to sell them all, they kindly thought of us.

Carrots are lovely treats for our horses, so the care team at our Norfolk headquarters has been grating them to put into feeds and to give out with medication for the patients in our Horse Hospital.

Local businesses have donated horse feed and carrots

If you’d also like to support our frontline teams in their vital work at this difficult time, please click here to find out how you can donate. Thank you #RedwingsAngels!