Four donkey foals: Tweety, Milana, Sora and Bluebird have become part of the family at The Donkey Sanctuary Ireland in Mallow. Co Cork less than a year after the discovery of the badly neglected group of donkeys in a field in Co Galway.
FOUR DONKEY FOALS born after their malnourished mothers. Were rescued from an abandoned herd are now thriving at their sanctuary home.
Four of the animals in the herd were in such bad condition. That they had to be put down on site.
Among the group, the rescue team identified four pregnant mares. Three of which already had young foals, as the donkeys in most need of urgent care. And all seven animals were transported down to one of the charity’s farms in Cork.
Unfortunately, one of the mares, Linnet, died shortly after giving birth. to Milana, requiring staff at the sanctuary to bottle feed the young foal in her early weeks of life.
Orphaned Milana has however since developed a close bond with mare Starling and her foal Tweety. And the trio now spend all their time together.
Head of donkey welfare at the sanctuary, Cathy Griffin, said the outlook for the four young foals. Would have been very bleak if the abandoned herd had not been reported.
She said that there are foals there that if we hadn’t intervened. The likelihood is that none of them would have survived where they were. Because their mothers were all compromised. And they certainly weren’t going to be getting the specialist vet care that they needed when they were born with us.
So, we likely would have been lucky if any of them had survived and now, because of our intervention. They get to live out their life, knowing nothing but kindness and what good donkey welfare is and enjoy their lives.
And it would be nice to think that they perhaps then could go back out on our rehoming scheme. And give somebody else the pleasure of having lovely donkeys as pets and give something back in that way.
But, either way, they’ll have us looking out for them for the rest of their lives.
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