You can donate hay.
Hey buddy, can you spare a flake?
Fund-a-Flake program raising funds to feed wild horses up for adoption
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Cathleen Allison/Nevada Appeal Shirley Allen plays with Ozzie, a 7-month-old colt who came to Lucky Horse Rescue Corral in April and has been nursed back to health. Mike Lynch has adopted Ozzie and is fostering Ginny, both seen at rear.
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Karen Woodmansee
Appeal Staff Writer, kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com
November 23, 2007, 4:01 AM
Caring for wild horses and helping to arrange adoptions has become Shirley Allen's calling, but she admits the costs can be prohibitive.
She said hay bales cost about $13 each and are going up all the time.
"I just talked to my hay guy and he said the next load will be even higher, because of the drought," she said, adding that each horse goes through a bale a week, sometimes a bale and a half.
Allen, of Dayton, who operates the Lucky Horse Rescue Corral for Least Resistance Training Concepts, will be getting some help feeding her herd of 10 horses.
Fellow wild horse enthusiasts from the Wild Horse Preservation League are distributing donation cans for Fund-a-Flake, a program to help pay for the hay, at cash registers all around Central Lyon County, so horse lovers can drop their change in to help feed the horses.
Allen said she appreciates it when horse lovers offer to donate hay, but she can't accept it.
"When you change a horse over from different types of hay, it's not real good for them," she said. "Depending on the hay and how rich it is, you can throw them into colic or founder. Those both can be fatal."
She said she feeds the horses a good quality grass hay, and also supplements if necessary.
"The babies are on special feed and sometimes if they're underweight, we'll put them on rice bran pellets to gain weight," she said.
Allen recently cared for two foals, Ozzie, who was adopted by neighbor Mike Lynch, and Ginny, a red roan filly that Lynch is fostering. She said the two horses enjoy playing together.
She said in September Ginny was running with a herd near the Seven Mile Canyon Ranch just north of Virginia City and couldn't keep up with the herd because of a leg injury.
Allen said Ginny will be ready for adoption in a few months.
In the meantime, Allen is hoping Fund-a-Flake helps cover the costs of caring for the animals.
The need is increasing, she said, because adoptions are down. Allen said the more money that can be raised, the more horses under the auspices of the state Agriculture Department can be taken in by the Lucky Horse Rescue Corral and placed when adoptions go back up.
• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 881-7351.
Where to donate
Here are some of the locations of the Fund-a-Flake donation cans:
Dayton
• S&S Market
• True Value Hardware
• Makin' Coffee
• Corner Store
• Ace Hardware
• Car Quest
• Beefy's Hamburgers
• Carson Plains Market
Mound House
• General Store
• True Value Hardware
Stagecoach
• Stashley's Market
• Stagecoach Market
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