'My sanctuary for disabled sheep was blown down'

The owner of a sanctuary for sheep with additional needs has said it was partially destroyed during Storm Bert.

The Smallest Flock Sheep Sanctuary near Shaftesbury in Dorset was battered by the strong winds and heavy rain on Saturday night.

More than £1,000 of damage was caused when a field shelter was blown down and hay to feed to sheep was left unusable after being soaked through by the rain.

Charlotte Reynolds said despite the disruption the sheep coped well during the bad weather: “We’ve got an old blind ewe. We also have a sheep within the flock that has no eyes.

"She was born that way so her friends wear bells so she knows where they are but she’s been with us for the last seven years."

Ms Reynolds founded the sanctuary in 1997 and it is home to 42 sheep from different backgrounds.

The team spent the summer getting ready for the winter because they had previously lost a shelter to bad weather.

They tried to pull the polytunnel back together and dry out the hay but £1,200 worth of damage had been done.

Many of the herd are older, live with additional needs, or have been saved from going to slaughter.

“We have some with smaller needs, with under shocked jaws and things like that so, they’re all different, it’s not just a commercial flock of young sheep to look after", Ms Reynolds explained.

A fundraiser has been set up by one of the volunteers to help pay for repairs.

Ms Reynolds said. the group tried to fix the damage because the herd needed a dry place to shelter when more bad weather arrives.

“They do like somewhere to go when it is heavy rain but, obviously where it’s been raining again, we’ve had to just try and recover it.

“A lot of the hay will go to waste because it’s just too wet, all the way through, and we won’t be able to feed it to them.”

You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.