Bob Hitch and his wife Valerie set up Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in Kent almost by accident. Now they and their team care for more than 100 rescued animals. By Susan Elkin

Shelly is a pigmy goat. A few weeks ago he had a nasty skin condition all over his body and a painfully infected ear. Unaccountably he also seemed to be coated in engine oil. And as if that wasn’t enough, he had foot root, an agonizing bacterial infection of the foot’s horned area which causes the whole foot literally to rot away if not treated with antibiotics. No wonder this bedraggled – apparently black- victim of neglect was desperately distressed. Then his luck turned.
Found by an RSPCA inspector, Shelly now lives at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats near Maidstone in Kent, Britain’s only goat sanctuary registered as a charity. Sanctuary owner, Bob Hitch, and his team gave Shelly a good meal and tucked him up for the night in a cozy pen with other goats for company.
The next day they treated the goat’s ear and washed off the engine oil using detergent and bacterial shampoo in a series of nine warm baths. They also carefully washed its face.
“To everyone’s amazement we now find we own an almost white goat with a pink bald head” say Bob, explaining that the skin trouble is being treated by the sanctuary’s ever helpful vets.

Fostered Out

More than 100 goats, many with sad histories like Shelly’s, live at Buttercups, and a further 30 or 40 are fostered out to good homes in Kent and Sussex, their placements monitored by the sanctuary.
At this time of year walkers on the Greensand Way, a long-distance footpath which crosses Buttercups’ land, are often astonished by the number and variety of goats grazing peacefully in the sunshine: large, small, horned, un-horned, black, white, brown, fawn, long-haired, short-haired, some frisky, others with limps and / or problems caused by old age and / or past ill-treatment.
So what made Bob and his wife Valerie start the sanctuary back in 1989?
“It was an accident” explains Valerie. She and Bob kept rare sheep which were one day mistaken for goats by a passer-by who knew of two goats needing sanctuary and wondered if the Hitches would take them in. “To cut a long story short, we did, “she says. “Later there were some homeless goats no longer needed by a Kent County Council workshop for the disabled. Then we got to know the RSPCA inspector and somehow it snowballed.”
The sanctuary, which works with trustees, volunteers and fundraisers, is now pretty full although Bob and Valerie always keep space for emergencies in case they get a call about a goat like Shelly.
“There is also a space problem if we have to take in an ‘entire billy’ who cannot be put with other goats until he has been castrated,” says Valerie. Of course, the Sanctuary has a non-breeding policy. Otherwise rising numbers would mean too little space for needy goats.
But that didn’t diminish the delight last Christmas when a newly arrived goat produced a tiny dark-grey kid. Angel, as she is now called, cavorts happily around her mother in the meadow.
Goats live for about 14 or 15 years, sometimes as long as 20. Most are middle-aged before they arrive at the sanctuary. “We have lost five so far this year”, says Valerie.
Last year, when the Ministry of Defence abandoned its controversial use of goats in tests for deep diving decompression sickness, Buttercups was asked to take most of the herd, a total of 28 young goats. Most are now in good foster homes.

Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats, Boughton Monchelsea, Kent ME17 4JU (01622 746410; www.buttercups.org.uk) runs open days throughout the summer on the first Sunday in the month from 12pm to 4pm. Buttercups runs an Adopt a Goat scheme for anyone who wants to support one.