Pearl has to be the one of the most prettiest of all donkeys, and the one who has the hardest life. Pearl arrived matted, verging on being emaciated, her front feet were curled up and both front legs had open weeping sores on the, and she was terrified.

Even starving as she was she wouldn’t come near anyone to eat, the only the farrier could get near her was by having our vet sedate her.

While she was sedated, we managed to get near her wounds, they were wounds not sores, from what we can only think of she had been shackled on both front legs and the shackles had cut into her legs.

This was the start of getting Pearl back on her feet. Despite treating her, the farrier getting to grips with her feet Pearl never picked up as she should have done, as a last resort (her coat gave the tell tale signs) we took a Cushings test it came back 386! (low teens is what you would like to see)

With this information she was put on Prascend only half a tablet, six months later she had a second Cushings test, her count came back as 106, she was starting to gain weight, her coat stopped looking like a woolly mammoth, and we had got on top of her laminitis, her Prascend was increased to one tablet a day, on the advice of the laboratory where her blood test had been sent.

Six months later she had a third Cushings test, much to our disappointment her score was the same, she has now been increased to one and a half Prascend tablets per day.

It has taking twenty months to get Pearl looking like a well-cared for donkey, her front legs will always be twisted, but she now comes to you, she will still back away from strangers, her trust has been destroyed, we have all but combated her physical problems, but mentally she will always have scares from her previous owners

Pearl will stay here, she is one of the “vulnerable” donkeys, despite all this she is an incredible loving donkey.