Welcome Gigi!
Posted on 29 September 2017.Do you remember Rita, Peppino and Scheggia? In the last newsletter we told you about the story of this family, consisting of mom pony, daddy donkey and their mule son ... who now has become a big brother.
Do you remember Rita, Peppino and Scheggia? In the last newsletter we told you about the story of this family, consisting of mom pony, daddy donkey and their mule son ... who now has become a big brother.
There is a brand new way to help: join Helpfreely.org and everytime you buy something in hundreds of online shop, an automatic donation will be made to our Rifugio. With no extra costs for you!
It is so simple: register and get the HelpfreelyApp™; activate the app when you shop your favorite brands; automatically generate free donations. Go here and start helping our Rifugio every time you make a purchase.
Here at our Rifugio we believe that education counts a lot. In these years we have welcomed over 15,000 kids for guided tours, teaching more about donkeys and they needs. But now we want to take a further step and to create little at age, but big at hearts, superheroes for the donkeys.
The cost of hay, basic food for donkeys, keeps on rising: drought and supply difficulties have increased the price up to 18 € per 100 kilos (it was 12 € just some months ago) and we fear that soon it will go up to 20 €.
Every donkey at our shelter eats about 3.5 kilos of hay per day: multiplied by 143, the number of donkeys we take care of, it means a daily consumption of 500 kilos, for a daily cost of more than 90 €. A huge sum, which we cannot support alone: we need you to fill the feeders!
As every year, when Autumn comes our opening time changes, according to the rhytm of nature and to light-hours.
From Sunday 1 October, visitors can join us from 10 am to 5 pm.
For more info about paying a visit, please read here.
Mimi's attentive look while she waited to be groomed; Comptesse and Duchesse's happy faces, lined up to get cuddles; children and adults playing in the hay-pool; all the questions to our volunteers during guided tours and the moments where no-one was listening, because no words can be attractive as a donkey coming next to the fence asking for cuddles... Many details from our Summer Party which make great emotions.
We have gathered some in a Flickr photo-album (click on the picture below to enter).
For a couple of weeks, our Rifugio has started producing elettricity by its own thanks to a new photovoltaic system in the isolation area.
This will allow us to save up to 15% of yearly expenses for energy costs – talking about money, it will be a saving of 1000€ a year.
We are still mourning Cristina and it's time to say goodbye to another donkey, our little, big warrior Luca. He lost his battle against an enemy too strong for him and for us who were fighting by his side: a colic with intestinal twist, impossible to operate surgically considering his age and physical conditions.
Two more donkeys have joined our foster scheme last week and reached their new home: Paolo and Zoe. Maybe you know their stories already...
Paolo was was of the four survivor "eco-friendly lawnmowers", involved in a project which was meant to use donkeys instead of clippers to keep the grass low near the main roads of Treviso county.
A shocking undercover investigation in Southern Africa has strengthened calls for an immediate halt to the donkey skin trade with The Donkey Sanctuary describing it as “...lawless, unscrupulous and destroying peoples livelihoods.”