Jid

A Second Chance

A donkey was brought into the ACE hospital with an injury seen all too commonly here - a saddle sore.  In the majority of cases, these wounds are caused by inappropriate padding underneath the tack or due to badly fitting tack.  He initially had two wounds which were very slow to heal so he had a prolonged stay with us in the hospital.  As a result he soon became a vet's favourite as he was such a character!

He would call out in the morning to be let out to graze in the paddock and would always love to have a roll!  He soon acquired the name 'Jid' meaning grandad, as he had crooked knees! 

Sadly one day the owner decided that they could wait no longer and that they needed him to work.  We tried our best to persuade them to let Jid recover fully before returning him to work, but to no avail.  They promised to bring him in on a regular basis for us to dress and monitor his wounds.  Sadly after a few days the owners failed to show up again.

A month later he returned back to us and his wounds had gone back to square one again.  However, the owners this time had brought him to us to be euthanised as they thought the wounds would never heal - which admittedly they wouldn't when the same harness causing the problems would be put back on again and again. 

We have so many donkeys that come in to be euthanised for good reasons, however to have to euthanise for such an avoidable reason was something our vets were reluctant to do.  Luckily, the ACE staff supervisor was looking for a donkey to help work on his fields, and apart from the saddle sore on his back our vets could find no other reason as to why Jid couldn't work.  He was hospitalised and due to the poor rate of healing of the wounds it was decided to perform skin grafts to help the healing process.  The grafts were very successful and four weeks later, a donkey that was brought in for euthanasia was heading for his new home! 

He is now working every day and is being used to deliver alfalfa from the fields to ACE to feed our current inpatients - and he gets a cuddle and pat too!