Generous donation brings horse welfare charity nearer to replacing vital equipment
“When looking after around 110 horses on a site that covers nearly 100 acres, a tractor loader is an absolute necessity and, thanks to a recent generous grant by the Elise Pilkington Charitable Trust, the team at Hall Farm, World Horse Welfare’s Rescue and Rehoming Centre in Norfolk are a step closer to getting a new one that will enable them to meet the daily requirements and rehabilitation needs for the horses in their care.”
Ruth Tarry from the Elise Pilkington Charitable Trust said: “We have been delighted to support World Horse Welfare over a number of years with grants towards a diverse range of projects. It is clear that a tractor loader is central to the lives and wellbeing of all the horses and ponies at Hall Farm, as they recover and are rehabilitated. This grant fits our objective to relieve suffering and to care for equines perfectly.”
Sue Hodgkins, Centre Manager at Hall Farm said: “Our old tractor is nearly twenty years old and, with daily use around the farm, it’s inevitably coming to the end of its working life. It is becoming increasingly unreliable – to the point it isn’t economically viable to keep repairing it – and its unpredictability means it often spends days out of action. There is no other practical way of moving the sheer volume and size of bales we use and with hay and straw being fundamental to the most basic of care, this is a vital function. We desperately need a new one, but they are expensive pieces of equipment. The generous donation from Elise Pilkington Trust has put us a significant step closer to being able to realise that.”
Tasks that the old tractor would normally do are either being delayed or, where possible, performed by other machinery not designed for the job. A replacement tractor will lead to significant cost savings for the charity in terms of repairs, will cut the amount of fuel we are using on other less powerful vehicles having to perform its role and mean the staff can devote more time to the core of work of rehabilitation.
The farm tractor also performs several other vital functions in terms of maintaining the health of the soil and grazing, towing the grass harrow, and distributing fertilizer and has tremendous versatility in moving items such as barriers which are used to help herd feral and unhandled horses when they initially arrive at the farm and are too nervous of human contact to be caught, something that is a continuing trend of the last decade.
Hall Farm is one of four centres that World Horse Welfare has around the UK, with the others in Somerset, Lancashire and Aberdeenshire. Horses that come into the charity’s care will be nursed back to health and assessed for their future activities. The aim for every horse is to be rehomed, every one that is rehomed frees up a space for another horse in need to be taken in.