Toby The Rescue Donkey

Hi, my name is Bex. Last summer we bought a derelict farm in Ireland and we are renovating the place ourselves on a very tight budget.

A donkey was not in our plans whatsoever! However we came across a lonely donkey in a local field with no shelter at all. We visited him every day over the winter. He was such a lovely chap but in desperate need of some health care & a warm dry place to rest. We had to do something for him.

I left a note on his gate asking if the owner wanted to give him up to let me know. A few days later they rang to say they no longer wanted him and we could take him! Panic set in! We had nothing ready!

My husband quickly set out to build him a shelter from whatever materials we could find laying around the farm and it was a great success.

Toby came to us finally in February. He is an 11 year old stallion and has a history of aggression with other donkeys hence why he was alone.

He also has hoof issues and we knew he needed some expert care.

We have been in touch with the Irish Donkey Sanctuary who were so grateful we took him in. Stallions are particularly difficult to rehome and often left to rot in fields like Toby. They loved our stall and are going to help us get him gelded. We hope that procedure will eventually allow him to have a rescue friend. We have a farrier coming regularly now too for his feet.

The Sanctuary recommended we add a hard standing/winter area to the field to help his feet and give us an area to keep him in the wet months away from the mud. This will also give the grass a chance so we can turn him out in the summer to graze, thus keeping his feed costs down.

To create this fenced off hardstanding area we are expecting costs of around €1500 in materials alone, which we just don't have. All the work will be done by ourselves but we hope to raise funds for the materials and machinery hire required to do the job.

Any help towards this will be so gratefully received. We really want to get this done so we can look towards rescuing a second donkey as a companion for Toby.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.

Thank you for your support.

Bex & Sam

The Irish Homestead