The Donkey Sanctuary has made a one-off £10,000 donation in response to an urgent request to help an animal sanctuary in Australia.

The Good Samaritan Donkey Sanctuary (GSDS) is running out of food for its donkeys because of the drought and bush fires affecting the country.

The Donkey Sanctuary has agreed to buy 21 tons of barley and straw and fund two weekly water collections until the end of April 2020.

GSDS, located in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, is the largest in Australia, looking after 80 to 150 donkeys at any one time.

It has exhausted its stores of barley straw, which were intended as winter stock and suppliers have put a cap on the amount of feed any one customer can purchase on the same day, with some running out by the time the sanctuary reaches them.

GSDS farm manager Sandy said: “We are travelling out every day to all our suppliers to get hay and straw for the next day’s feed. It’s tiring and we can’t seem to get ahead at the moment, with doing everything else.

“It’s very stressful here, we are just concerned about feeding, watering the donkeys and taking care of them. We are just coping. The drought has hit us terribly.”

Fires close to the sanctuary are currently listed as being ‘under control’ but the danger risk for the Hunter Valley region is still high.

Simon Pope, tactical response lead at The Donkey Sanctuary, said: “We have all seen the utterly heart-breaking scenes unfolding in Australia for both humans and animals alike over the last few months. It’s only due to the generosity of our supporters that we can play a small part by responding in this way - helping donkeys in their time of need.

“The GSDS has worked tirelessly, sometimes round the clock, to deal with the effects of this drought and with the threat of bushfires still hanging over them.

“When we learned just how hard it’s been for them to source feed and water for the donkeys in their care and the exhausting but determined efforts they’ve had to go to, we knew we had to help.”