Dig Deep For The Black Sheep

We are experiencing an increasingly serious mud crisis at the sanctuary which is affecting our animals' quality of life. It is always problematic at this time of year, but it is currently the worst it has ever been. As extreme rainfall continues, the mud is getting worse for our pigs and goats.

Why is there a mud crisis?

Pigs are social, curious creatures that love to dig and we encourage our animals to exhibit this type of natural behaviour. They are also very heavy animals that compact the ground in their paddocks. During the winter months, digging behaviour combined with the lower compacted ground level results in a build up of water and mud which can't drain away. We have various sized pigs and the smaller ones are getting more isolated in their paddocks, as the increasingly deep mud pools leave much of their play area completely off limits.

We have tried to reduce the mud problem by rotating our feeding stations and moving water troughs to give the worst areas time to recover. We dug trenches to assist with the drainage, but the problem is now so urgent we need a large scale solution.

Our solution:

We are fundraising for the cost of hiring a digger and truck for 4 days to help us drain the mud and water and put gravel in the pig paddocks. This will stop the formation of increasingly deep pools of mud. The gravel and additional top dirt layer will raise the ground level to form higher permanently dry areas and create a firm base to help with drainage in the paddocks.

Our goat paddock is also in deep mud in many areas and making our goats unhappy. We only have limited paddock space in which to rotate them and let the ground recover. We have built raised runways to give our goats some relief from the mud around their feeding areas, but we hope to create an additional 'hilly area' in their paddock using the digger and the dirt we have on site.

We have all the gravel and dirt resources required for the job, but we urgently need you to help us raise funds for the digger and truck.

We have three pig paddocks that we need help with and one goat paddock that needs some mud rescuing.

The approximate costs are:

$300 to get the digger up to the sanctuary property

The diggers costs $145 a hour

The truck costs $120 a hour