Volunteer at an animal rescue in Ireland & help caring for pigs.

Free Volunteering 3 January 2023 Europe, Ireland

Volunteer at our vegan animal rescue! We’ve so many pigs who need attention and understanding, as well as the equines and other animals. Join us!

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Volunteer at an animal rescue in Ireland – requirements & tasks

We live on an old estate with 13 rescue equines (donkeys, ponies and horses), 100+ rescued pigs and various sheep, goats, dogs and chickens. If you’d like to join us, you must be a genuine pig lover! We have so many pigs here who need attention and understanding! We are looking for volunteers who are over 22 years of age and have had experience in a busy, working environment before.

Your day will start with feeding the animals, making sure they are medicated, enriched and happy. We must ensure that their areas are clean, that they have enough water, warm beds and are not displaying any physical or behavioural signs of discomfort or distress.

We’ll need you to be physically fit, listen well and learn quickly. We rely on people who are happy to get dirty, stuck in and stay motivated under stressful and challenging conditions. This can mean nursing infant animals through the night, rehabilitating injured wildlife or having to work through emergencies like extreme weather or animals falling ill.

Working with animals is totally unpredictable and will *constantly* pose challenges that require a little more. Before you get in touch you must ask yourself can you stay motivated if work and conditions are harder than expected. Facilities will break, we might be short on help due to cancellations, days will be hard and unexpected obstacles will occur. Only those with a real drive to work hard and learn are a suitable fit for this.

Here is not a suitable place to come if you have problems with energy, lethargy or migraines from exertion. Some days can be physically and mentally demanding so you must be able to work in highly pressurised and demanding environments. You will be expected to respect communal living spaces and tidy up after yourself.

Volunteers must have advanced English. The routine here can change daily so understanding English is very important. Also for safety reasons there is sometimes the need for quick explanations. Volunteers must have their own health insurance before making travel arrangements.

The animals thrive in a calm environment; therefore we are looking for positive attitudes, happy to muck in and get through the manual labour, as well as patience and thoughtfulness with animals who need time to come around. This is incredibly rewarding if you enjoy tuning in to the little daily achievements and rehabilitation of the animals.

Volunteer at an animal rescue in Ireland – what we offer

Your accommodation would be a cabin with heating, several volunteer bedrooms and a bathroom or one of the single room wood cabins adjacent to the main big cabin. If you are travelling alone there will always be other like-minded volunteer here (we host approx 15 people at once) with you so you won’t be lonely!

At times you may have to share your room with another volunteer – please ensure this is fine for you before applying to stay here. You’ll need to be flexible and you may sometimes be asked to change rooms. Long term volunteers are given priority for single rooms.

You can prepare your own meals in our volunteer kitchen with ingredients of your choice that we provide. We do a communal food shop once a week. You get 3 meals a day, 7 days a week.

Please note this is a vegan residence so please be sure you are comfortable to avoid eating animal products during your stay.

We are committed to making our farm a safe space for people to learn and work. We have a zero tolerance policy of bullying, racism, sexual misconduct, homophobia, harassment or intimidation.