FOUR DONKEY FOALS born after their malnourished mothers were rescued from an abandoned herd are now thriving at their sanctuary home.

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 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.

Sora with farm groom Vicky Lewis. Jo Fearnley / Donkey Sanctuary Ireland/PA Media Jo Fearnley / Donkey Sanctuary Ireland/PA Media / Donkey Sanctuary Ireland/PA Media

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.

“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,” she said.

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.

So, they’ve kind of won the donkey lottery in a way.

Donkey Sanctuary Ireland is currently at full capacity and can only offer care for other animals in exceptional circumstances.

Griffin said many other animal charities in Ireland are in a similar situation, finding it hard to deal with increasing demand for its services amid mounting budget pressures.

Four foals in their warm shed at Hannigan’s Farm with farm groom Vicky Lewis and farm supervisor Tim Daly. PA Media PA Media

“I suppose the real thought I’d have is I know these four are really lucky foals, but we don’t have space for the next foal that needs help and what’s going to happen to it?” she said.

“And that’s a worry that we carry all the time. You know, what about the next pregnant mare and the next foal and all of the rescues are full, all of the animal charities are on their knees struggling with the numbers of animals, whether it’s dogs or donkeys or horses, we’re all in the same boat, and something has got to change.”

But from a practical sense, the amount of work and resources that have gone into these donkeys is just huge, from staff having to come in during the night to check on them and feed the little orphan foal throughout the night.

With space at the sanctuary at a premium, the charity is now placing enhanced focus on prevention and community-based solutions to try to reduce the number of neglect and abandonment cases.

This year it undertook 13% more welfare calls out in the community and also performed around 100 donkey castrations, up 30% on 2022, in a bid to tackle unplanned breeding.

The sanctuary says this proactive approach in the community is designed to reduce the number of donkeys that will ultimately need sanctuary, making the welfare crisis more manageable going forward.

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