From January 2017 Kikas takes over the role as an Adoption Donkey from our dear Lonnie and we know you’d like to hear a bit about him. Vital statistics first of course!

Name: Kikas (pronounced Kee-kas)
Born: January 2015
Sex: Gelding (castrated male)
Colour: Very dark brown
Height: Still growing!
From: Larnaca District
Arrived: 21st July 2015
Best Friend: Castoris
Hobbies: Playing with Castoris, galloping fast, food, being groomed, throwing his feed bowl around, getting cuddles, rolling and getting dirty!

We’re now into our Autumn Outreach Programme and it seems as though we’ll be doing even more donkeys than ever before. So far this year we’re pleased that the number of extremely obese donkeys and those with horrendously long hooves has been a lot lower than previously. However, we still come across animals with these long hooves resulting in permanently internal foot damage and laminitis (a painful foot condition). One recent case is shown here; We were able to improve the shape of the hooves and make the donkey more comfortable on this occasion.

Mainly due to our Outreach Programme helping to keep donkeys with their owners, most of the donkeys that are relinquished to us are very elderly and invariably have some health issues. This is certainly true of dear old Johnny, a semi-retired working donkey, who at around 35 years old had lost a lot of weight since we saw him last year.

It’s nearly that time of year again when we start planning our Outreach Programme. Visits start in May and as the number of donkeys we check and treat increases every year, we’re expecting to help more than 220 donkeys in over 70 villages by the end of October.

Looking back at our records, in 2009 we treated 70 Outreach animals but also received a lot of calls from tourists and locals, concerned about the welfare of donkeys they had seen. In 2015 we helped over 220 animals – an increase of 214% compared to 2009!

In September last year we collected a 7 month old donkey called Kikas. Being a young stallion we couldn’t put him in with the other donkeys and so improvements were made to the paddock at the Holding Base owner’s house. The idea being that he could live with a 6 year old gelding we had called Castoris. Dear Castoris had already been with us for almost a year but absolutely refused to live with the other donkeys so we thought giving him a youngster to share a home with might help him..