Building a New Home for Freya & Toby

Over the past few years, thanks to your kind support, we have been able to stop simply fixing up some of our animal homes and start again with brand-new builds. When we took over this site, the years had not been kind to it, and with both natural degradation through the years paired with neglect and destruction from a previous tenant, we have certainly had our work cut out for us. We decided a few years ago that we would stop simply carrying out repairs and take on the mammoth task that this beloved site deserves, to be rebuilt from the ground up. Obviously, this costs a lot of money and takes a great deal of time, especially as we make your generous donations stretch further by carrying out as much work as we can ourselves, using the talents of our dedicated and skilful team! We even recycle materials where possible – for example, the base of our peafowl aviary was created thanks to a kind donation of slabs as the metro was being installed in Birmingham City Centre, and the path of our tanuki enclosure was created using reclaimed paving blocks donated during the Dudley High Street regeneration project. 

 

We don’t look at our little sanctuary and see what it is now. We look at it and see what we want it to become! It will take a lot of work, but for our residents, the animals who will need our help in the future, ourselves, and YOU our local community and caring supporters, we think it is 100% worth every hour and every penny.

 

While we want to create new homes for all our residents, and create more so that we can help others, right now there are two very special residents who are at the top of our list – Freya and Toby our rescued foxes!

 

As both foxes have never known a life in the wild, we cannot release them to this life, and so they deserve the very best home that we can give them at the sanctuary. While they cannot live wild, this doesn’t mean they don’t have some of their natural instincts and so it’s important to us that they have a home where they can express these – for example, Freya loves to dig and hide food, and burrow under objects. She’s extremely agile and loves to jump and climb! She loves the sun on her face and adores finding a sunny spot to sunbathe in the summer. We’re still learning about Toby as he settles in and everything he likes as he finds his feet here, but one thing we do know - he’s happy with his new friend, Freya.

 

Freya’s current habitat was always meant to be temporary – it was an empty enclosure created for another animal, available to us in an emergency, and used always with the intention of creating something more permanent for her in the future. Although not quite what we wanted, she settled, and it bought us a little time. Now this project must move to the very top of our list.

 

We have a couple of ideas for locations, considering areas of the sanctuary that we think they will enjoy - there is, after all, a lot of Brockswood not currently used to its full potential. This will be far more spacious, and with greater height as well so that they can jump and climb. More space for Freya and Toby, but also considering the future and possibly another friend for them as well!

 

We’ll factor in their other needs, such as being able to dig, making it as naturalistic as we can safely. There will be a warm, secure shelter – these animals are equipped with thick fur coats in the winter, but there’s no harm in having the option of extra comfort if they want it, and we must remember that as they become older in the future, they may be more grateful of these extra comforts. We try to consider all eventualities with our new builds, as we make it the sanctuary they deserve.

 

We also build in considerations for our team so that they can easily take care of them – with our new builds created from scratch, we can factor in important features such as drainage, plumbing for water, electrics, etc. We also consider you and what you might like to see, and what would help you as a visitor. So, we would love to hear your thoughts!

 

Most of all, we would love your help. We won’t have a complete idea of costs until we have a finished design, location, and obtained quotes for materials; but we have a good idea that it will cost us in excess of £3,000. Are you in?