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Many wonderful Happy Trails supporters generously
donate to help support the farm animal rescue efforts here at the sanctuary.
Though I’m sure that everyone has a basic idea of how our funds are spent,
I’d like to highlight some typical as well as not-so-typical expenses that
we deal with on a daily basis.
Let’s take one week for a typical example. Some of our basic operating
expenses include having to purchase grain, provide hay, bedding and medical
needs for (currently) about 16 horses, a cow, three sheep, two goats, about
a billion geese, ducks and chickens, 23 pot belly pigs, six farm hogs, and a
partridge in a pear tree...Just kidding about that last one. So, there’s
about 60 to 70 animals moving through the sanctuary at any given time, and
that number doesn’t include the animals we have out in foster homes. We are
still responsible for certain areas of their care also.
Our grain costs last week came to $187. It varies from week to week
depending on if we received any grain donations or not.
A load of hay came in at $3.75 a bale, and we got sixty bales — $225
worth. With our pastures eaten down and the amount of horses here at this
time, we are going through about ten bales per day, so that is not quite a
week’s worth of hay to us.
We need to keep up with bedding for everyone, from the piggies to the
horses to the ducks to the sheep. We had been using strictly straw, which
we’ve found on an average of $3.50 a bale. A load of about 40 bales of straw
this past week cost us $140. Our stalls in the horse barn are 12’x12’, so
they take a little more bedding than the smaller stalls that many people
have. We would like to switch over to bags of sawdust shavings for the horse
barn, but it’s actually even more expensive than straw, with an average
price of about $3.75 to $3.99 per bag. We tried getting a load of sawdust
once, but that wasn’t realistic either, not having any safe or dry area in
which to store such a large amount of sawdust.
The above list is for basic food and bedding expenses. Those figures
don’t count the medical issues from last week.
Royal, a handsome Standardbred gelding who was once treated once for EPM,
a neurological disease affecting stability and balance, had another episode
with reoccurring symptoms. His 28 day paste medication alone was $550.
Barney, another Standardbred gelding, was given the typical thorough
check-up and health evaluation upon being accepted into our program, which
was $150.
A mom Standardbred and her baby, who was born with a congenital birth
defect (a deformed front hoof and ankle), was accepted into the Happy Trails
rescue program, but not after a complete examination which came to a total
of $550.
Hoover the new mini-pig needed neutered — $135.
The rooster hurt his eye in a bar fight (read - through the fence) with
the other rooster — Opthalmalic Terramycin was $8 a tube.
All the horses were due for their six-week hoof trimming. Draft horses
cost a little more, and four draft horses at $35 each cost $140. Twelve
regular horses at $20 each to trim, cost Happy Trails $240.
The goats and sheep were due for Vitamin B-12 shots. Luckily we had those
on hand - no out of pocket expenses this time.
We ran out of fly spray — two gallons of Bronco at TSC was about $14
each.
The one group of horses kicked in half the one metal gate out in the
pasture — read $45 for a new, cheapest we could find, metal 12’ panel gate.
And that’s just for one week.
The week before the Summer picnic, we had more gravel delivered to help
complete the truck turn-around in front of the horse barn to make loading
and unloading safer for the horses as well as the people and trucks involved
in transport. Gravel itself was $375, with another $75 to have it spread and
put in place.
Some of the projects that we are still hoping to accomplish include:
having a cement floor laid for the one piggy shelter that often floods when
it rains — quoted price: $550. Having stall mats installed in all the horse
stalls to help save on soggy bedding and help prevent pawing and digging of
the stalls — quoted price per stall - $150 (there are 14 stalls). Getting a
few final loads of gravel dumped to finish off the turn-around area next to
the horse barn — average cost per load: $180.
Our expenses very weekly due to unexpected circumstances or emergency
rescues or what happens to need repaired that week. Certain items that we
constantly need to purchase are grain, hay, straw and medications. Hopefully
this will at least give you an overall idea of how funds are used to
contribute to the direct care of the rescued farm animals. |
