 what do we spend our money on?Liz and Kevin from the Smelly Alley Fish Company started rescuing animals 28 years ago. They outgrew their place near Reading and moved with ducks, geese, cats, and dog to Somerset. They have 13 acres - 4 are left to wild life, deer, badgers, foxes, rare grasses, orchids - the other 9 are used for rescue animals. At present we have 23 cats, 3 ponies, 40 ducks, 10 geese, 3 chickens, one dog and a bad-tempered mule. All are rescued. Where are they rescued from? Well, if you take in one stray cat the word soon gets around and people think you want another stray cat. A neighbour said that she found a kitten by the roadside and assumed that it had been thrown from a car because it was battered and bruised. She said "I found the kitten and thought of you." Our farrier said "If she had found a £20 note she wouldn't have thought of you!", but that's how it goes. Then, because of the nature of cats, if you have a lot of cats, more drop by - stray farm cats, feral cats, lost cats, they all turn up. We have a microchip reader and test all the newcomers, and ring all the local vets to find out if there are any missing cats waiting to be found, but so far we have only reunited one cat with its owner. The rest have stayed here. We always have a dog, to bring a bit of sanity into the smallholding, and so far have had four rescue dogs and an ex-police dogs, all German Shepherds. Liz looks them in the eye when they arrive and tells them not to touch the cats, and so far they haven't! We had a donkey whose owner died, so we kept it, and three ponies whose owner was at her wit's end because her place was so muddy. Surprise, surprise, they all gave birth nine months later! Then there was the story of the donkey who just before he died mated a friends pony (after 12 years of not being interested in the other sex), and we ended up with the mule. Poultry comes from far and wide, from the ducks whose mates have been killed by the fox, so their owners bring them here because they are lonely, to a large white duck found in a chine on a beach near Lyme Regis. We even had a wild mallard who came up to our shed when we were putting our ducks away one night and brought her 14 ducklings with her - after looking at Liz as if to ask if she could join the other ducks. All are looked after till they die, when they have a head stone in the cemetery.
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