Nutella a 14-year-old SB mare looking for her forever home as a treasured paddock mate. Photo: Supplied/Christchurch SPCA
The Christchurch SPCA is so chock-full of animals it is halving the fees on adult dogs and horses for the next two weeks to make some space.
The fee reduction will take the cost to adopt a dog down to $125, and to adopt a horse to $145, and goes from 4 February to Sunday, 19 February.
The Christchurch SPCA centre manager, Natasha Sutton, said people would need to meet all the standard requirements, such as being fully fenced for a dog and a property check for horses.
Sutton said they were very close to full capacity at the moment, and hoped the move would free up some space. She said there were currently 32 horses in their care, though some were being looked after by foster carers.
She said the number of horses coming into SPCA care had jumped hugely in recent years.
"We've had a couple of rough years in terms of things like floods, and droughts and natural issues, that have made things like hay and feed quite scarce so we think potentially this is why we are seeing more horses, with people finding it harder to find food and give horses the care that they need."
She said in the past it was more usual to have one or two horses in the SPCA's care at a time, but last year the Christchurch centre had 60 horses over the year.
Details of all the animals at the Christchurch SPCA centre looking for homes can be found here