Certainly getting busier now - spring has sprung!!

We now have fox cubs, baby squirrels, leverets, baby rabbits as well as young feral pigeons & collared doves. Fledgling garden birds expected any day now.

There will be no rest now until about October - staff and volunteers, get ready........

Still no fox cubs yet, although some centres do have them in already. I was expecting them earlier this year due to the mild winter but no sign yet.......

We had an adult dog fox in today though, in a very sorry state. The RSPCA were called to him, he was caught in a wire fence and th wire was wrapped round his muzzle which must have been agony for him. That was not his only problem though - he is emaciated and also has mange (well, they say things come in three's!)

You can see how thin he is and the hair loss and sore patches due to sarcoptic mange in the first photo, and the other shows where the wire was tightly wrapped round his jaw.

He was given fluids, antibiotics and Stronghold and has been bedded down under an infra-red lamp with some food and Lectade.

We also had a young collared dove in that was caught by a cat 2 days ago. The lady has kept it since then and has been feeding it bread. Please, please do not feed bread to birds! A small amount of brown bread for birds in the garden will not harm them as they have access to plenty of other food as well,but a youngster such as the collared dove, not old enough to pick up seed etc for itself should never be given bread. It's crop was full of undigested bread which would have just rotted in there and the dove would have died. We had to flush out the crop and empty it out (not a pleasant thing for the dove or for us!). Whether he/she will survive remains to be seen.

Making progress on the new cages. All the fiddly trim bits are taking ages, but Richard is making a great job of it - thanks for all your volunteering Rich :)

Had the tiniest just-hatched collared dove in yesterday, weighed just 6gms!!! It was taken by a cat whilst still hatching from the egg and the cat owner removed it from the shell. Sadly it died a few hours later. but I've never seen one so tiny.

Things are just starting to get a bit busier now, nothing like it will be in a few weeks but we're being eased gently into the manic season!!!

The fitting of the cages in the new Hog Unit is coming on well. The first picture shows the 'Men At Work' this morning and the other shows one side of the unit with caging in place. This has now got to be finished off with a white plastice strip along the bottom, which hides the framework, aluminium strips to all the joints between the individual cages and sealant all round. The opposite side of the building has the same number of cages & the centre will have 2 back-to-back rows.

Although named the Hog Unit, these cages can be used for not only hedgehogs, but for all sorts of other mammals and birds - it will be a huge improvement to our facilities.

We have started a campaign on the 38 Degrees website to ban the use of snares in England. Please vote to help get these barbaric things banned by following the link on the Snares Page of this site.

If you are on Twitter please share it there too.

At the moment we have 2,900 votes and the number of people who assume that snares are already illegal has amazed me. A majority of the snare victime that we deal with are due to legal snares.

Things are slowly getting busier within the hospital and the spring rush will soon begin. Fox cubs usually herald the start of the 'manic' season for wildlife rehabilitators and although we haven't had our first cub in yet, we know that Wildlife Aid and WRAS have both taken one in.

We have dealt with 240 casualties so far this year, up on last year's figures so is 2012 going to break the records?

The mild weather has meant that we have been able to release some of our bigger hedgehogs recently but we still have well over 100 in our care. Our new cages are arriving on Monday to fit out our Hog Unit and once installed we will have cagespace for around 150 hedgehogs just in this one area. The cages are made of fibreglass, have glass fronts and will be much easier to keep clean than the old wooden cages and hutches we are using at the moment.

Don't forget to sign the petition.

Yet again we have had the emotional job of dealing with an animal caught in a perfectly legal, supposedly humane, snare.

We were called to a badger in a wood near Winchcombe. It was the landowner who called us after he came across the animal trapped at the base of a tree. I don't think that he was aware that it was a snare but we confirmed this when we arrived on scene. The poor thing had been desperately trying to free himself for days and you can see in the picture below where he has excavated a trench around him where he has been struggling to free himself. He had been there for several days and his wounds were badly infected.

The snare itself was a free-running type, perfectly legal to use for rabbits, foxes etc. However, snares must be set with the landowners permission and they must be checked at least once every 24 hours. In this case the landowner had not given permission and the snare could not possibly have been checked for days.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, we had no option but to end the badger's suffering.

We have to deal with the horrific injuries caused by snares all too often and have many photographs of the suffering they cause.

How can something that causes this still be legal?

Snares must be banned - now!!

We are campaigning for a ban on snares in England. Please show your support by voting at http://t.co/rqurQa1P

More information about snares and the suffering they cause can be found on the National Anti Snare Campaign (NASC) at http://www.antisnaring.org.uk/

If you find a snare, please report it here http://www.snarewatch.org/

It's been a busy day today. Amongst others we have had: a wild boar piglet, a robin (attacked by a rottweiller!!!), 2 foxes, a little owl that was hit by a car and a blackbird which was caught by a cat.

One of the foxes had been shot! See the photo of the x-ray below. How can using a shotgun to shoot a fox be considered humane? The poor animal was suffering from septicaemia, was very thin, had jaundice and one eye had been damaged by the shot.

He had obviously been suffering for some considerable time.

Yet another hedgehog in with a Royal Mail elastic band embedded in it!!

Apparently the Royal Mail use 2 million of these elastic bands every day and I shudder to think how many animals get caught in these but never get found. This hedgehog is one of the lucky ones....how many suffer an agonising death because of our littering?

Latest picture of Bela the otter cub below, taken at Middlebank Wildlife Centre. She is now fully weaned and will hopefully be moving to Skye in the next week. She apparently wasn't well for a few days but is now fighting fit again. Thanks to Colin and his team for their excellent work.

Our first 2012 casualty was a windowstrike goldfinch (making a change from the usual pigeon or hedgehog, lol). Luckily he had only sustained minor concussion and was released the same day.

2011 was a busy year but the team of staff and volunteers that has worked tirelessly throughout the whole year have helped to make it one of the most successful years to date in terms of getting casualties back to the wild. Well done to all the Vale team!!

Vale has managed to weather the recession storm so far although our financial reserves have taken a battering. This year is going to be another difficult one but I hope that everyone that appreciates our vital work will support us and help us through the tough financial times.