Bella gets all the daily attention she needs

We met Bella for the first time on this year’s Outreach Programme. As she was only three she wasn’t used for work but her hooves were painfully long, largely because she was very scared and rather difficult to handle. After sorting out her hoof problems, we explained to the owner that she would need monthly trims to keep her hooves in good condition. The owner had some health problems and told us he might prefer us to have her so she could get the daily attention she needed.

George helps Helena cope with her sad loss

Dear little Helena’s mum, Effie, already had an old injury to her hip when she came to us last year. When we discovered she was pregnant we were very concerned about her during the pregnancy and when giving birth. Fortunately with the help of some safe medication and careful monitoring, she got through the pregnancy but the problem with her hip after Helena was born continued.

Kastoris gets the best care

Kastoris is a very handsome donkey and has the rare, but gorgeous, smoky grey colour coat we all love. Although only six years old, this young stallion was one of the donkeys we treated on our Outreach Programme for several years. His elderly owner took good care of him and he was a very well behaved donkey – the whole team were very fond of him.

Animal Inspector training is a great success

The first half of basic donkey health care training for Limassol District’s Animal Inspectors took place in July 2014 at Limassol Veterinary Department.

We had originally been informed that there would be around 25 people attending so we thrilled when over 30 arrived. Not only were the Animal Inspectors there, but also some vets, a donkey owner and vet students – one from Greece, some from Cyprus and another working in Slovenia.

Little Helena playing around

Although we put our foal, Helena, in with our oldies group a month ago to learn a bit more about being a donkey, at five months old she still has a lot of energy to burn off. A trip to the shop and €1 later, we put two cheap balls into the paddock to see if she would be interested in playing with them.

Young supporters help our donkeys

We all know that to improve animal welfare, we need to educate the younger generation. Without having a visitor centre this has become much more difficult for us and so we were delighted to hear from some young supporters who wanted to help us.

Limassol Junior Grammar School are very involved in learning about the environment and animal welfare. The school has its own environmental club which many of the children belong to and the group organised a fundraising bake sale which raised an amazing €125 for our donkeys.

Kayak champions promote our work

We were recently contacted by a young couple, who were coming to Cyprus on holiday, if we would like them to make a short video about our work. James and Katia are both international freestyle kayak competitors and we were curious to find out what their interest in donkeys was. Apparently, although they have some sponsorship for their sport, they needed to have some income and so James had started by videoing his sport which then developed into producing videos.

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