The Small Animal Ark

THE SMALL ANIMAL ARK IS NOW CLOSED The End...? It is with great regret that, because of numerous circumstances beyond our control that we had to close The Small Animal Ark on the 23rd October 2009. We would like to thank everyone for their support for all of our work since the rescue was launched in the summer of 2008 and in the time we were open, we were able to find new loving homes for almost 100 small animals - rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, budgies, degus, chinchillas, and more besides. We can't thanks everyone enough who has made very genous donations of hutches, food, bedding and funds that helped us keep going, all of those who attended our fundraising events and especially everyone at Betta Pets in Lichfield for their incredible generosity in sponsoring us for so long. Without you all, the Ark would have closed much sooner than we were forced to. If we are honest, despite the support, it was a general lack of funds that forced us to close. We found that it was a combination of vets bills and a regular need for neutering animals that placed an incredible strain on the Ark's resources. We found that many people simply didn't want to adopt rabbits unless they had been neutered and this meant that the donations we received once they were adopted didn't come close to covering our costs to care for them and in addition to that, many rabbits also came to us in need of additional veterinary treatment or were troubled animals which made them harder to rehome. However, the Ark's story is NOT over... We ARE planning on re-opening the Ark in the future in a new form. The rescue will come back with a new name - The Lichfield Guinea Pig Rescue - and will change it's focus, concentrating more on guinea pigs which we always found were easier to rehome, had fewer behavioural problems and have needed less treatment at the vets. We also found that - out of the animals that previously came into our care and were rehomed - about 65% of them were guinea pigs already so it seemed to be a natural transition for the Ark. However, for us to be able to do this, we need funds to make it happen. It is our intention to build up funds properly to be able to re-launch the rescue with sufficient funds to allow us to run the rescue completely from reserves (if necessary) for a MINIMUM of a year without having the need for support from donations or sponsorship which will then give us time to continue additional fundraising efforts and put any additional funds into reserves and allow us to continue our work for as long as possible. This fundraising plan will also allow us to improve the work that we will be doing. We will change the way the rescue operates and change our status if possible to become a registered charity which will open up more fundraising opportunities for us, and although we will have a more focused approach in terms of the type of animals we support we believe that we will still be able to support as many, if not more animals than ever. To do this, we believe that we will need to raise £2,500 before we can re-open. A large sum, we know, but to give the rescue a strong future to build upon, we know it is worth it. You can use the button on the left hand side to make a donation, support us through any fundraising events we will be holding or even run your own! We will also be running a small holiday home service for anyone who needs to have there pets looking after while they go on holiday and again, this will help raise valuable funds for our relaunch. All of this will help and you can see our progress on the right hand side of this page, and to find out what difference your money will make to the rescue, you can read more here. You can also watch our fundraising appeal video on Youtube here:- Also, if you run a business and want to get involved in sponsoring us (for example if you can provide ongoing support for food, bedding, etc or would like to make regular donations), then we would love to hear from you. PLEASE help us bring the rescue back and help even more needy animals than before. Get In Touch If you want to get in touch with me about the past work of the Ark, our future plans, to help with fundraising or or anything else, email me here or you can phone me on 0798 3805430. Trish x x x If any of you experience problems with the PayPal donations link you may need to adjust your browser cookie settings as they may be preventing the PayPal donation link from working. If it still doesn't work after adjusting the security level of your browser, go to PayPal normally and you can just send any donations directly to our email address - lichfieldgpr@aol.com

Site Launched: 13th June 2008 - Updated: 24th January 2010