Sadly Miss Puffle, she had a different name then, although well loved, had not been treated right. Her formative puppy months had been spent incarcerated in her crate due to both her owners working full time. She had no manners whatsoever and wasn't even house trained.
Darcey joined house cats Daphne and Lizzie.
Sisters, Daphne and Lizzie came to live with us when they were about 6 months old, yes around the time cats need spaying, their previous owners didn't feel they could offer the girls a good enough life living in a caravan as they did.
Two lovely tortoiseshells girls with very different personalities. Daphne and Liz hadn't previously had access to the outside world and as our road can get very busy and it's really not safe for wandering cats we decided to keep them as house cats.
We also have a few chickens living in the garden. The latest addition to our little flock of rescues, we've had ex-battery in the past, is Dolly, who was abandoned at Muddy Bottom, where we keep our horses. That's her pictured above in her travelling crate. Apparently she was caught eating eggs so her owner wanted rid of her, as it turns out she'd only just come into lay and since living with us we've seen no sign of egg eating.
Another bird abandoned at Muddy Bottom is Hansel the goose, dumped in the orchard by his owner to take his chance with the foxes. We herded him down to the horses thinking he could spend his nights safely in our old horse trailer but he's always refused to go in it. He lives with the horses and has a special bond with Madeline.
Madeline is a black thoroughbred mare who had previously been kept as a companion to an ex-eventer. When he died her owner didn't want to keep her so she came to live with Boo.
Boo is an ex-hurdler and point-to-pointer, an Irish bred thoroughbred he is our oldest resident at 20.
We have one other ex-racehorse, Tipper, purchased straight from the racing yard out of pity, he was in a poor way and looked to be heading straight to the pet food industry.
Then there are the ponies.
When Darcey first joined us, we had three ponies.
Murphy who was saved from the meat man as a yearling by a lady who couldn't keep him so he came to live with us. We had great fun with him for 8 years before he was taken catastrophically ill and sadly had to be put to sleep.
Pip who was offered to my husband by a gypsy as a just weaned foal
and the rather famous Eggsy Pony (he has his own blog & Twitter) who was abandoned by his owners when he was just a foal.
Around the time that Eggsy was found abandoned Gingee turned up at Muddy Bottom. At first he didn't get on too well with long term orchard cat Charlie but eventually they learned to tolerate one another.
Gingee is currently the only cat at Muddy Bottom as poor old Charlie got hit by a car last year and his luck finally ran out, Charlie had been involved in two previous road traffic accidents but there was nothing anyone could do to stop him crossing the road.
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