Hay drive for riding school horses

Hi, My name is Abbey and I run Ajay Equestrian Riding School in Ballarat.

We have 30 horses here who are used to bring joy to many children and adults who cannot own their own horses.

We are in an extreme drought here and are currently spending $250/week on water (we are only on tank water and have it carted in every week just for the horses).

Our paddocks are bone dry and have no grass whatsoever. We care a lot about our horses and no matter what we always have a round bale in their paddocks. However, we used to pay $80/bale, which was fine. However, Victoria is now out of hay, and NSW is close behind... we are now having to transport hay down from QLD.

The amazing farmers in both NSW and QLD, as well as transport companies have been absolutely amazing to deal with and the Aussie spirit has definitely shon through.

However, the hay bales are in excess of $2000 and the transport is over $8000. This is making each bale now over $220 each...

At Ajays, we go through 6 bales a week minimum to keep our horses healthy.

We do not want to put our prices up again (we did a price rise in December when hay went from $80 to $130/bale!) And we dont want to make riding unattainable for lower income families.

We know there are many wonderful people out there who would love to help us through this drought, and once we get to the end of it we promise to pay it forward and help others in any way we can.

Thank you for reading this, any small amount is greatly appreciated.