15/12/2025
Please Share: You may have seen the Department of Agriculture's press release on Friday about the annual animal welfare grants being issued, what you may not realise is that for some unexplained reason they have cut our funding by €20,000 from the amount we received in the past two years. We have written to them and Clare's 4 TDs to seek an explanation for this drastic cut.
Fundraising is hard work and knowing what we have achieved from various campaigns over the years there is absolutely no way we can fundraise enough money to make up for the shortfall in our grant allocation. Our veterinary and feed bills alone in 2024 totalled €31,186 so as you can imagine we are going to have to completely scale back the number of animals and services we provide in 2026, https://www.burrenrescue.com/about_us/
At present we are caring for 10 dogs, 32 cats, 9 hamsters, 3 pigs, 3 sheep, 7 donkeys and 22 horses/ponies. Each year we assist members of the public with the costs of getting cats (and dogs in certain circumstances) spayed/neutered. Obviously, all the animals that come into our care are spayed/neutered (in the case of equines all colts/stallions are castrated) prior to rehoming. We also have the ancillary costs of worming, vaccinations, microchipping and, in the case of equines, farriers & passporting.
In October 2024 we lost our haybarn to the first winter storm and work is ongoing to raise funds to cover the costs involved in rebuilding, the ground is repaired and framework purchased so we are hoping to have that much erected in the coming weeks. We have sufficient funds raised to cover the cost of roofing it but will need to raise more to sheet the walls. Prior to the barn damage we had been raising funds for a new training/handling area for the dogs and equines but the project was put on hold until the barn was dealt with, sadly it looks like this project will have to be put on hold for the foreseeable future.
Now more than ever we need your support - tickets are currently available for our Winter Prize Draw https://www.burrenrescue.com/shop/winter-draw-2025-ticket/, closing date is the 18th of December.
We can't do what we do without you 🫶
