Worse than I expected

We were warned at the last meeting of the Regional Board that the drop in income from donations would mean the National Society would have to make cuts in annual spending, so this doesn't come as a complete shock. However a planned saving of £54 million is fairly steep, even spread over a three year period. Normal annual turnover of the National Society varies around the £100 million mark, so we're looking at a cut of about 18%, rather than the 9% that was originally suggested as a probable figure.

On ducks and water

This is something I wouldn't normally write about because it's not really relevant to our local activities, but it's so important because of the general principle involved that I thought I must say something.

Marion Stamp Dawkins is a very famous and respected scientist in the field of animal welfare, and one of her department's recent studies involved DEFRA-funded work on the welfare of farmed ducks.

This is important for anyone who cares about animal welfare, but doesn't think we can simply ban eating farmed ducks, because the UK rears approximately 18 million ducks for meat annually. Currently there is no legal requirement that farmed ducks should have access to water, beyond the provision of "nipples" similar to pet drinking bottles. Allowing large numbers of ducks access to ponds which cannot be kept clean is problematic because of the risk of salmonella and other diseases.

Unfortunately, publication of the first results of the study has been met with howls of derision and very little sympathy for intensively farmed ducks.

If your organisation has a subscription to Science Direct, you can read one of the scientific papers on the results of the study at doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2008.07.008 however, the less readable DEFRA report is free and is available to download. One important finding is that it is possible to enable farmed ducks to keep themselves clean, and stop them getting sore eyes, by providing showers of water droplets. This uses less water than ponds and doesn't have the hygiene risks associated with pools of stagnant water.

Most of the criticism of spending money on this research into welfare standards stems from the view that: "We knew all of this already". This simply isn't true. Abolitionist campaigners have certainly been saying for years that ducks ought to be allowed water they can swim in — to which intensive farmers have replied smartly that this is sentimental nonsense and ducks are better off in warm, dry pens with drinking water that cannot be contaminated by their droppings.

The Oxford study demonstrated for the first time that water is essential to allow efficient preening, which is important for the birds' comfort, but that a clean shower, or a narrow trough is as good for this purpose as a larger body of water.

Interestingly the almost the only non-science publication to have reported the item positively and in a balanced way is Farmers Weekly:

"In an on-farm trial, it was clear that of all water supplies available to ducks – whether it's via a trough, pond, shower or nipple drinker – birds overwhelmingly preferred spending time under the shower.

Although there is no looming regulatory need to offer extra water supplies to farmed ducks, producers – backed by the British Poultry Council – have supported the research, which also included detailed scoring of the birds on test to assess various aspects of their physical condition while alive and after slaughter."

"The purpose of the trial was to assess the behavioural reaction to ducks when given access to a range of different sources of water in which to bathe. Commercial producers were fully supportive of the trial, but recognised that providing clean supplies of water for large numbers of commercially reared ducks – and keeping that water and the area around it clean – isn't easy," said Prof Dawkins.

Drat! Yet another setback with the new shop

Solicitors phoned today to say they'd just received the documentation concerning the "licence to assign" from the owner of the freehold (the Prudential). This is a legal necessity to give the current tenants permission to sell the existing lease to us and both the solicitor and I were pretty unhappy that they are only now — six months into the process — asking that we not only provide bank references, but also a guarantor of rent payment.

We offered proof that we have sufficient funds to cover lease payments to the current tenants right at the start, but this is completely fresh, and looks as if it may completely throw a spanner in the works. The Prudential probably hope that the National RSPCA will agree to underwrite our payments with their own funds — which legally I don't think they can as it would be diverting charity donations given for another purpose. Devoted as I am to the branch, I'm not prepared to use my house as a guarantee, and I don't think any of the rest of us should either.

I suppose this is happening because the Prudential are getting nervous about possible rent defaulting in the current economic situation. If something similar is going on with other shops it's not surprising that so many are empty around Cambridge.

One day retro/vintage sale day!!!!

Sadly still no more news on the new shop and we are currently swamped with amazing stock, but no way of showing and selling it. Until now.......

On Saturday 30th May, Recycle, Reuse, Restyle, an eco credit crunch beating event is being held at St Phillips' Church, Mill Rd Baptist Church and outside the former Wilco shop. In addition to tips on how to save money and become more eco friendly, we will be showing and selling a small range of our amazing retro & vintage stock. Charity shops, retro & vintage clothing and clothes customization are after all "the new black", or maybe the new Green!

We'll be in one of the Church halls from 10-4 pm, so come along and find some treasures.

St Phillips: View Larger Map



Mill Road Baptist Church: View Larger Map

Freedom Food Egg Saga continues

Alice Clark, senior farm animal scientist with the RSPCA, said she was working with the egg industry to gather the evidence necessary for the RSPCA to be able to support the change. She said the RSPCA had asked scientists at Bristol University to look into the issue, but Tom Vesey said, "We don’t have that much time. The suspicion is that the RSPCA is prevaricating. I get the feeling the RSPCA finds it best to say nothing. It says it is looking for evidence, but that is like proving a negative. This could drag on for 12 months or more and there could well be a shortage of eggs. The shortage could be filled with imports, many of them of questionable welfare standard. That would do nothing for animal welfare."

Alice Clark told the Ranger that she was just as keen as the egg industry to press on with an evaluation of the potential impact on welfare. "It’s not something that we have closed the door on; we are keen to look at it," said Alice. She said the evidence about the potential effect on animal welfare did not exist at the moment, but she had been holding meetings on possible trials.

She said the RSPCA was asking scientists at Bristol University to look into the issue as part of an existing study under way at the university. The study was set up to look into range enhancement. Scientists are one year into a three-year project. "Bristol are very keen to do that, so that should be under way."

Read it all...

Why isn't RSPCA Week a success?

RSPCA week does raise significant amounts of money for animal welfare, but why isn't it more successful than it is?

Every year we appeal for volunteers to help collect, but very few actually come forward. As a comparision: over four thousand calls were made to the rehoming line, set up when the St Bernards became available for adoption, within the space of a few days.

I think there are several, interconnected reasons for the difference:

• The St Bernards appeal offered a single, heart-tugging story. "Bread and butter" collections to support routine animal welfare work don't have the same immediacy.
• People may genuinely believe that the RSPCA doesn't really have a pressing need to generate funds. I've even had kindly-meant offers of help to take donated sales goods to the Sue Ryder shop to get rid of it so that it doesn't take up storage space.
• Most branch committees are run by very few, over-worked individuals. This means the people organising RSPCA week are generally also trying to do other things. Volunteer collectors may get the impression that things are disorganised and badly-run, and they may feel unappreciated if they don't get their collection results back quickly after they've returned their boxes.
• Most collectors expect to be putting in a few hours as part of a well-organised rota of hundreds of individuals. There seems to be a vicious circle whereby the volunteer who finds she is the only person collecting at a particular store decides the organisers can't have put in very much effort to recruit collectors and that she probably won't bother next year.
• People who are already very involved in caring for animals are often quite dissatisfied with the RSPCA — sometimes because they feel RSPCA campaigns aren't radical enough; sometimes because they think our campaigns go too far, and sometimes because they have unrealistic expectations of what is physically possible for us to do in terms of practical animal welfare. This means our potential volunteers and helpers are probably drawn mainly from a population which is initially less committed (people who might collect for an hour, but wouldn't expect to be asked to put in a whole day, for example).

RSPCA Birmingham Animal Centre

Birmingham is a large centre run by RSPCA HQ, but the basic problems of rehoming animals are applicable to all RSPCA groups

Rabbits in urgent need

The Rabbit Residence rescue in Hertfordshire, the Mayhew Animal Rescue in London and the RSPCA are looking to rehome 18 rabbits in urgent need of rehoming from a 'city farm' in London.  All of the rabbits will be checked over by the Mayhew's vets, however, unfortunately both the Mayhew and the Rabbit Residence are absolutely full at the moment so the rabbits have nowhere to go.

If anybody could provide a good home for any of these rabbits then please do get in touch with Caroline at the Rabbit Residence. Her number is 07904 397378, and her email is rabbit_residence@hotmail.com

The best way to contact Caroline is by text or email. All the rabbits will be checked over by the Mayhew's vets, and, if necessary, they can be transported to anybody who can provide a good home. It would also be a great help if anyone was able to adopt some of the rabbits currently at the Mayhew or Rabbit Residence in order to free up space so that others can come in. 

Some of the rabbits currently with Rabbit Residence can be viewed in their rehoming gallery. There is also information about the correct conditions for keeping rabbits on the website.

Homes needed for ex-battery hens

Homes needed for 11,000 Battery hens by 29th June!!

Little Hen Rescue would like to make contact with people interested in taking on ex-battery hens. They're not an RSPCA group, but they are well organised and have sensible policies on selecting suitable homes. If they are not satisfied that you would be capable of providing suitable free-range conditions for chickens, they will not rehome birds with you.

I should stress that they are an entirely legal rescue; they make agreements with farmers who are about to dispose of "spent" hens who are no longer economically viable as commercial layers. 

Their next rescue event is due to take place on 29th June and they need to have enough homes to accommodate 11,000 hens by that date.

Please use the form on their website to contact them if you are interested in taking on a group of hens. They're based in Norfolk (with an outpost in Lincolnshire) and you would need to be able to arrange collection from there.

New charity shop

The process of purchasing the lease of 61 Burleigh Street is proving to be very protracted and I know that some of our supporters are feeling frustrated about this. We have to follow the legal advice of our solicitors, as we would potentially be putting the branch funds at risk if we were to sign the lease without getting the proper safeguards.

At the moment, we are waiting for the freehold owner of the shop to provide what is called a "licence to assign", which is a legal document confirming that the current tenants (who currently lease the building) have permission to transfer the lease to us and that there are no additional conditions, on top of those in the actual lease, which could be detrimental to our ability to use the shop or result in increased cost to us. 

We have the purchase funds waiting in our bank account and a mountain of sales stock stored at 188 Mill road, so once the lease and licence are available, we should be able to open very quickly.