Halfpenny-Farm Animal Sanctuary

Halfpenny-Farm Animal Sanctuary At the time we are closed to the public. A place in the country that gives old, ill or animals at risk a fresh start and a safe home. SC041616

Animals who come here stay here, we don't rehome.

A big shout out to everybody who has donated to us in any way. We have had a lots of Amazon wishes, from pet fresh disin...
12/02/2025

A big shout out to everybody who has donated to us in any way. We have had a lots of Amazon wishes, from pet fresh disinfectant to toys, food and bedding.
Thank you so much, we are really struggling and anything given helps the animals have the best of lives.
Thank you!
Photo by Ellie.

Odin thinks it’s a rubbish morning, so wants breakfast in bed! Photo by Ellie.
11/02/2025

Odin thinks it’s a rubbish morning, so wants breakfast in bed!
Photo by Ellie.

And talking of smiles, Dillon is glad it’s nearly the weekend! The photo by Ellie.
06/02/2025

And talking of smiles, Dillon is glad it’s nearly the weekend!
The photo by Ellie.

Not the best picture of Cara, she’s a pretty little welshie, honest!Cara came to us quite a few years ago and was very s...
05/02/2025

Not the best picture of Cara, she’s a pretty little welshie, honest!
Cara came to us quite a few years ago and was very scared, flinching when touched and very head shy.
We spent lots of time with her, and she settled although she has always been hard to catch.
She now has a severe heart murmur, a grade 6, so we try to keep her as stress free as possible.
Photo by Katie.

This little lady, Mabel, joined our family about a month ago. Sadly her owner passed away and at 18 years old, with a ty...
03/02/2025

This little lady, Mabel, joined our family about a month ago. Sadly her owner passed away and at 18 years old, with a typical tortie attitude she needed a home used to characterful cats.
She has settled well, but vet tests have shown she is hyperthyroid and in kidney failure. We will care for her, for as long as she needs, thankfully she likes other cats, even if she’s not keen on humans.

On a happier note, we welcomed these ladies into the family, after they were struggling to find a home. We hope they wil...
02/02/2025

On a happier note, we welcomed these ladies into the family, after they were struggling to find a home. We hope they will enjoy life here.

01/02/2025

We collected another deer today, from beside Morgan McVeigh’s on the fisherford road. The poor girl had a badly broken hind leg. When we got there a kindly gentleman had stopped and 2 other vehicles stopped while we were there. We got her into the back of the car and rushed her to Donview vets, and, although it was out of hours, Katie the vet came out and kindly put her to sleep. There was no saving her.
In hindsight, I realised the New Arc may well have been contacted, so I called to let them know what had happened. The New Arc had been called and had driven out to try and help, however we had already taken her to the vet. They were happy to know she had not been left suffering rather than be upset they had a wasted journey. They had already dealt with 2 other deer that day. We agreed to let them know in future if we could go out locally to help.
A thank you to those who stopped, the gentleman who was there when we arrived was visibly upset, but stayed with her anyway as she was too large to lift by one person.
Hopefully the message is getting out there and people are starting to help animals in need.

To add to our sorrow, we lost our old girl Pricilla yesterday. She was on palliative care and was around 16-17 years old...
01/02/2025

To add to our sorrow, we lost our old girl Pricilla yesterday. She was on palliative care and was around 16-17 years old, but we felt she had been doing pretty well lately. We found she had passed yesterday lunchtime, when we were going in with her feed. She was a lovely old lady who took her meds without fuss and was an adopted mother/ guide to Morag, our blind sheep. They were joined at the hip. Morag seems ok and still has Claudia for company, but it’s very sad to have that missing piece of that group.
Sleep well old lady, you were such a sweetheart.

We also said goodbye to Amos the ferret. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma 2 weeks ago. He started on treatment and it...
30/01/2025

We also said goodbye to Amos the ferret. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma 2 weeks ago. He started on treatment and it seemed to be helping, other than he had no appetite. He was on steroids which should have caused him to be hungry. We tried various types of food to tempt him but he wasn’t eating much and had lost a huge amount of weight. Today he wasn’t eating at all and was weak and although alert and interested was not able to move around much. We decided it was better to let him go rather than find him collapsed or passed in the next few days. He was a lovely chunky boy in his prime and had been here about 5 years, along with his friends, Gideon and Jethro. We lost Jethro last year, so poor Gideon is on his own now.
He will be missed by all.

30/01/2025

We had a very sad day, today.
Firstly we said goodbye to Leo, who came to us about 5 years ago. He had been born in a Romanian shelter and was taken to Britain at the age of 10 to find a home. Leo was very nervous and fearful and when he had to find another foster place due to a change of circumstances, we offered him a permanent home. He was not a dog who was happy to be handled by people and we never forced him. We did over time get him happy to have a lead put on and cope with vet visits.
He went in last year for a full mot and all was good, however he had a vestibular episode at Christmas time and took a long time to start eating again. A further exam showed he had an abdominal tumour. He had been failing over the last few weeks so he went in for further tests. The tumour had spread and was in his liver, spleen and base of his heart. The tumours in his liver were on the verge of rupturing, so we decided the kindest thing was to let him go.
The vet doesn’t think he had been in pain but at anytime that could have changed.
He was not an easy dog, he didn’t really want human company, but got on happily with the other dogs. We are glad he came here and we loved him dearly, he will be sadly missed.

Another day, another vet visit.Shamrock is an elderly bun, who has been here 5.5 years, so we think he is about 9. He wa...
25/01/2025

Another day, another vet visit.
Shamrock is an elderly bun, who has been here 5.5 years, so we think he is about 9. He was off his food and had a small amount of droppings this morning, which is never a good thing in rabbits.
He has a heart condition which means if stressed his heart rate can plummet and he collapses. Thankfully he coped well at the vet, had a selection of meds, he was nibbling hay later in the day and has passed a reasonable amount of droppings. He has some more meds to take over the next few days and hopefully is on the mend.

2 trees down already, lying on the rabbit shed and chicken runs, 2 more are looking like they will be next. Luckily, no ...
24/01/2025

2 trees down already, lying on the rabbit shed and chicken runs, 2 more are looking like they will be next. Luckily, no damage to animal housing so far. Each storm takes down trees and it weakens the ones next to them. These trees are big, over 50 years old, I guess what really needs to happen, is they need to be topped but we just cannot afford that.

23/01/2025

We are cancelling all volunteers tomorrow due to the weather forecast. Stay safe!

Adelie and Emily came to us over 5 years ago as young feral adults. They are beautiful girls who are good friends. They ...
23/01/2025

Adelie and Emily came to us over 5 years ago as young feral adults. They are beautiful girls who are good friends. They are still timid but don’t run away like they used to.

22/01/2025

Another big storm forecast from Thursday midnight til Saturday afternoon.
Please ensure all your animals are safe, take your wee furries in, or make sure their housing is secure.
Keep your dogs on leads and make sure fences and gates have no damage before letting your dogs out.
Consider keeping your cats inside.
Make sure your larger animals have protection from the weather and check on them and fences.
Stay safe!

Our big boy, Samuel, who came to us from Greece 8 years ago, hasn’t been feeling too well lately.He started coughing and...
22/01/2025

Our big boy, Samuel, who came to us from Greece 8 years ago, hasn’t been feeling too well lately.
He started coughing and bringing up phlegm/ food, so he had a vet visit and was put onto omeprazole. This helped slightly but he was still struggling and was booked in for x-rays, blood tests and scans. They came back pretty inconclusive, other than he had pneumonia and his lungs were in a bad state. He was also full of shotgun pellets from his days living on the streets in Greece. He is now on omeprazloe, a diuretic, antibiotics, gut stimulants, anti-sickness pills as well as allopurinol for his leishmaniasis. In all 9 tablets twice a day!
We did a bit of research here too and have him on small low fat meals fed often in a raised bowl to try and help with the reflux.
He’s doing ok, still bringing up the odd bit of phlegm but keeping most of his food down. We don’t know if the pneumonia was caused by aspiration or if something else more sinister is going on, for now we are treating him symptomatically and hoping for the best.

We had noticed Amos the ferret was slowly losing weight and becoming more lethargic. A vet visit showed his lymph nodes ...
20/01/2025

We had noticed Amos the ferret was slowly losing weight and becoming more lethargic. A vet visit showed his lymph nodes were massively raised and he has been diagnosed with lymphoma. He is now on the same treatment as Boozy, who is doing really well, so hopefully he responds in the same way. We’ve had Amos for 5 years and he came as a young adult, so he’s an old man now but we will try to keep him as comfortable as possible.

Address

Aberdeen

Telephone

+447737653402

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Halfpenny-Farm Animal Sanctuary posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Halfpenny-Farm Animal Sanctuary:

Videos

We had a very sad day, today. Firstly we said goodbye to Leo, who came to us about 5 years ago. He had been born in a Romanian shelter and was taken to Britain at the age of 10 to find a home. Leo was very nervous and fearful and when he had to find another foster place due to a change of circumstances, we offered him a permanent home. He was not a dog who was happy to be handled by people and we never forced him. We did over time get him happy to have a lead put on and cope with vet visits. He went in last year for a full mot and all was good, however he had a vestibular episode at Christmas time and took a long time to start eating again. A further exam showed he had an abdominal tumour. He had been failing over the last few weeks so he went in for further tests. The tumour had spread and was in his liver, spleen and base of his heart. The tumours in his liver were on the verge of rupturing, so we decided the kindest thing was to let him go. The vet doesn’t think he had been in pain but at anytime that could have changed. He was not an easy dog, he didn’t really want human company, but got on happily with the other dogs. We are glad he came here and we loved him dearly, he will be sadly missed.

At least somebody is enjoying the snow, for us it’s just a slog to try and make sure everybody is kept warm, fed and watered!

Boozy ( the dark ferret) may be elderly and suffer from low grade lymphoma, but he still likes to play with his buddy, Baggins.

Shamrock thought he would help with cleaning up. Video by Ellie.

I wish all the animals were as good at taking their meds as Slinky is, he’s such a good boy.

Danny trying to prepare for a roll, while Dillon was taking the mick! Video by Ellie.

We were donated some play pit balls, which we have used to entertain the ferrets, although there has been a mixed reaction. Boozy and Baggins seemed interested! Video by Cameron.

Many thanks to Caitlyn who came for a couple of weeks work experience, she was a great help and even managed to feed the healthy sheep without too much difficulty! We hope she enjoyed her visit.

It seems to have been a particularly bad year for ragwort, which is great for invertebrate wildlife but not so great for other types if eaten. We have spent weeks removing it for the fields. If you choose to volunteer, this is one of the jobs you could end up doing during the summer. Our fields are almost clear now, thanks to the volunteers!

We had to get the vet out to our big girl, Janet, yesterday. She’s an old lady now and has been slowing down due to arthritis, however she has been getting slower and yesterday didn’t want to get up for her breakfast, in fact she just would not get up at all. The vet came out and she was uncomfortable but we are not really sure what was wrong, although her droppings seemed quite dry. We have given her some lactulose, in case she is constipated, which is not uncommon in older pigs and have increased her dose of metacam because we may have been underdosing her. This morning she was up for breakfast, has passed softer droppings and this is her eating a fruit salad of apples, bananas and melon with a bit of oil to give fibre and fluids to help with the constipation. Janet is well loved and a favourite of many of the volunteers here due to her social and friendly nature. Fingers crossed she is now on the mend.

We’ve had a very busy week and got lots done. On top of the routine jobs, we had quite a few visits from potential volunteers and a visit from Brian, who is happy to do maintenance/ building jobs and started with fixing our digger, many thanks. We also had a good clean out of the feed store, by Mike H, and our horse rugs have had a through tidy up and organisation. We had Kirsty this week doing some work experience and she was a great help, on top of doing the routine jobs she was involved in sorting out the rugs. Everybody else cracked on with full cleans, health checks, poop picking and digging up ragwort. I did also mean to thank Jules, who wants to be a vet and came for a week’s work experience a few weeks ago. She also mucked in and helped us get so much further ahead. I have answered to quite a few emails requesting information on volunteering, but have not had replies. If you have messaged, please check your spam if you are waiting for a reply or call me on 07737653402 to discuss volunteering further.

Rhum and Iona do enjoy their morning treat!

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Our story

We’re an animal sanctuary just outside Inverurie in Aberdeenshire that gives old, ill or animals at risk a fresh start and a safe home. Animals who come here stay here, we don't rehome.

We are Mike & Louise;

We moved here in 2002 and have steadily increased our flock to a stage where we are now pretty much at capacity. We have always had an interest in animals but had not realised how deep it ran until we moved here.

Over time we came to realise there were many animals with various issues who had nowhere to go so we have become a sanctuary for those animals. They may be struggling to find a home due to behavioural problems, untreatable illness, they are now unwanted or there is just nobody else who can take them. Many of the animals were saved from being put to sleep, or have been dumped, left to fend for themselves.