Heartland Horse
Rescue
Newsletter
Well, 2008 is finally here. We here at Heartland are shivering our way through January. Hopefully, February will be a little warmer. We currently have 16 horses on site and 3 in foster care. This year we are working on renovations here at the Rescue. There are a number of projects that we have planned. We will be refencing and seeding the back pasture in April during one of our planned Work Days. We have a number of old buildings that will be burned down. We are going to be finishing the interior of the barn and fitting new doors on it as the ones on it are disintegrating. We are also looking into the cost of putting new gravel on the drive. It is starting to get pretty washed out.
We have quite a few events planned for this year, some dates haven’t been confirmed yet. However, we will be keeping the website up to date. We have found a sponsor and will be going to the Nebraska Horse Expo at the Lancaster Event Center in Lincoln on March 7th, 8th, & 9th. We are still looking for volunteers to help with the booth and the stall. Leiha and her baby will be accompanying us to the Expo. We have four Work Days planned this year. A Work Day is a day when we invite as many volunteers out as possible to help with projects around the Rescue. The dates are April 12th, May 10th, September 6th and October 11th. We will be holding our 4th Annual Open House on September 20th & 21st from 10am to 5pm.
Available Horses
Running Brave – 9 year old sorrel and white paint stud. He will be gelded before he leaves. He is about 14hh and has excellent ground manners. Very easy to handle. We were told he is broke to ride, but due to the weather have been unable to ride him to see how well broke.
Jasper – 2 year old sorrel and white paint. He will be about 13hh when he is done growing. He has been handled since birth and is halter broke and well mannered. Due to his age he is not broke to ride yet.
Belle – 12 year old flea bitten grey thoroughbred mare. She is about 16hh and is very well broke to ride. She was an ex-race horse and was then retrained for arena work for intermediate to advanced lessons. She is due to foal sometime in the next month or two. We are uncertain as to the date because the people she came from ran their stud with all the horses.
Missy – 15 year old registered bay Appendix mare. She is broke to ride, but needs someone with a firm hand. She was also very foundered at one point and needs her feet trimmed on a regular basis. We are adopting her as a companion due to this, but over the summer she should be able to be ridden.
If you are interested in becoming a foster home or in adopting a horse, please contact us at admin@heartlandhorserescue.com.
Fun FactA horse can drink up to 10 gallons of water a day.
Horse QuoteHorse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. – W.C. Fields
Short Story The story of Elsa the donkey. I was looking for a companion for my pony Flirt. He had foundered and we almost lost him. He needed to be put in a smaller pen with limited amounts of hay, since I feed my other horses from big round bales put in a bale feeder and they get to eat 24/7. I was at the 2007 Nebraska Horse Expo and stopped by the Heartland rescue booth. I started flipping through the book of horses for adoption and there she was. Elsa the donkey. I fell in love immediately. I spoke to Christina and filled out the paperwork. Then i had to wait anxiously for Christina to do a background check and get references from people. I knew that I would pass since all of my horses are very well taken care of and all my friends and my vet knew that.Finally Christina called and said she had all the information she needed and that Elsa was mine!!!! However, she was in foal (which was a surprise) and we might wait till after she foaled to deliver her. That was fine with me since now I had to digest that fact that I was getting two donkeys!!! Christina had Elsa vet checked and he said she had a ways to go yet, so we decided to bring her home to foal. Elsa finally arrived in April and I was just so happy. She gladly followed me into the pen for some Nicker Makers and then I settled her in her new home. At first everyone was a little shy about this new arrival with her long ears and funny voice, but pretty soon she become one of the herd. Now we had to anxiously await her baby. I read all I could find on foaling out a donkey and checked her every day for wax and signs of foaling, but she never would show any signs. So we just waited. Then one cold snowy, rainy morning in April/May I woke up at the crack of dawn and looked outside like I do every morning to check on everyone and I saw Elsa looking down at the ground at something white. I quicky got dressed and ran out there and there was a all white baby still in its sack and not moving. I tore the sack off and tried stimulate the foal, but she was cold and not moving. Elsa just stood there looking at me and wasn’t too upset but seemed sad. My friend Don came out and pulled the baby out of the pen and we could see that she had never took a breath, the cord was still attached and she had probably been born dead. I called my vet and described the foal and everything that occured and he said there was nothing we could have done and the baby probably had lethal white syndrome and was dead before she was born. I was terribly upset and cried the whole day. Once we buried the baby, Elsa just went about her business and ate her breakfast. So she must have known there was something wrong. Elsa has become a family favorite and takes the grandkids for rides and follows me around like a puppy. She just loves attention and brays at you first thing in the morning and every time after that when you come outside. Flirt the pony and her have become very good friends and race and play in their pen all day. Elsa loves to have her ears played with by my 1300lb QH gelding Dunny who leans over the fence and plays with her. She has quite the personality and is really a comedian.She is very gentle and easy to work with. So I am just so happy that I went to the Expo and found my donkey. Thanks Christina!!!!
We are always looking for short stories about rescue horses. They need not be about HHR’s horses, but can be about other rescue’s horses as well.
In the News
- On January 7, 2008 the Wall Street Journal had an article on unwanted horses. We have created a link on our website to this article. It was fairly accurate to what we are experiencing here in Nebraska.
- The Omaha World Herald will be publishing a story on unwanted horses due to the publication of the article in the WSJ. HHR was interviewed for this article.
- Tractor Supply Company is publishing an article in their February edition of the Out Here magazine which they sell in their stores. This article is on a rescue in Nevada, however HHR has been listed along with a few other rescues throughout the nation. They also have more information on us on their website due to this article.
Maggie Desperately Needs
One or More Guardian Angel Sponsors
Maggie is one of the horses from the Filley Feedlot that was rescued in April 2007. She is a 25+ year old QH mare. Our estimates are that she is closer to 27 or 28 years old. She foaled in May and when foal was able to be weaned she went into foster care with Betsy in Gretna. Betsy put a lot of weight on her over the fall, but with the frigid temperatures the last few weeks, Maggie has been losing weight again. We brought her back to the rescue on January 27th and put her on senior feed which we will need to continue to increase in small amounts until Maggie starts to really gain weight. We are currently going through 2 bags of senior feed a week for Maggie alone. Each bag costs about $13, which means her gain is costing about $115 a month plus her hay for a total of about $250 per month. This can be quite a lot for one person to sponsor by themselves, but multiple sponsors for Maggie would be great. We will be showing the progress of the funds raised to care for Maggie on our website.
A person can sponsor Maggie either through our website: www.heartlandhorserescue.com/donation.html or via snail mail: Heartland Horse Rescue, 2650 Co Rd 32, Linwood, NE 68036
