My sweet boy Ricky Bobby. This is a story about a little donkey whose mother turned her back on . I was working for HSNT, Humane Society of North Texas. We had received 300 donkeys with a collaborative effort of Ark Watch Foundation. 300 donkeys , many that had gone all the way to the border of Mexico awaiting slaughter, but rejected and returned to Forney Texas in a holding pen, more commonly known as a kill pen. A pen where animals wait to be slaughtered.
A kill pen is a petri dish of bacteria, disease and filth. When the donkeys arrived in truckloads, they were all sick. They went to our quarantine facility in Crowely, Texas. We put 300 donkeys through a shoot, separating boys from girls... all the males were jacks ( an intact donkey). the females are jennies. Most of them obviously bred. All of them had shipping fever ( a form of respiratory illness that turns into pneumonia.)Donkeys do not recover easily as their cousin equine, the horse. Everyday for 10 days we put 300 donkeys through a shoot and gave them each 2 shots. And ... not to sound like grandpa telling you he walked in the snow up hill to school everyday... it rained on us for the first 5 days.
Rain in the summer in Texas is not pleasant except for the actual rain part... The after rain part is miserable humidity that could not be worse for donkeys with shipping fever. the donkeys casualties were still very small. We fought for each donkey, but sometimes it just isn't enough.
One jenny gave birth to a beautiful white baby boy. he was healthy and she was recovering well. She was a seasoned momma. Another jenny lost her baby and she was not doing well herself. she had gotten into the jack pen somehow and they had raped her. Jacks are worse than rabbits about breeding. They do not care if the female is willing or not. I would never have an unaltered male donkey. ever. We got the poor jenny out and called the vet. She was tore up inside and he did the best he could. He said the rest was up to her.
The one young jenny had a premature baby. She wanted nothing to do with him. She looked over at the handsome white jack baby and took him. She did not want her baby. The crew milked his mom for a bit of colostrum, and gave it to him. They tried to see if the other mom would nurse him. Nope. that little white baby had two moms.
So then Dawn , the coordinator called me. She asked if i could come get this baby. Terry and I went the hour and a half drive and picked him up. I took him home and made him a bed by mine. I made him a pallet and fed him once an hour the way the vet had directed. I loved him the second I laid eyes on him. When Terry asked me what I wanted to call him.. I said Ricky Bobby after the character on Talladega Nights. I reckoned the little white donkey looked at him and said " If you ain't first, you're last"
Stay tuned and follow and find out more.... Does Ricky Bobby ever see his mom again? Where is Ricky Bobby now?
*picture credits go to star telegram, me and one of the Mexican Kill pen is off the internet