The Blue Acre Horse Rescue Centre is facing a crisis and may not have enough money to feed its animals this winter.

The charity on Ham Island in Old Windsor was started in 2002 by Caron North and Bob Regan and covers a 42-acre site.

It is dedicated to the rescue, care, rehabilitation and where possible, re-homing of abused, neglected or abandoned horses and ponies.

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Over the years it has also looked after sheep, goats, pigs, rescue dogs, chickens and ducks.

It runs on a small core team of volunteers all of whom dedicate their time for free with funds generated by public donation.

But volunteer Chris Knight said this week: "Due to Covid, the national lockdowns and our inability to run fundraising events we are desperately struggling for funds and are very worried that we won’t have enough money to feed our horses for the remainder of the winter.

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"We have 55 horses on site which amounts to £450 a week that we have to spend on hay alone to feed them all and that's before any other veterinary costs. We are urgently appealing for donations towards our hay costs to get us through the next nine weeks or until spring kicks in and the grass starts to grow again.

"This can be paid to the charity as a monetary donation or we can take donations of actual hay. We do have the facilities to be able to collect and store large amounts of hay if people prefer to donate in that way."

The charity tries to rehabilitate and rehome as many of the horses it takes in as possible - many of them coming from abusive or neglected background.

The team has to help them recover from bad experiences and ascertain whether they can be ridden, or rehomed purely as companion horses.

The horses all live outside 24/7 as one huge herd.

There is a Donate link on the website www.blueacrerescue.co.uk

You can also visit www.facebook.com/blueacrehorserescue and www.Instagram.com/blueacrehorserescue