Poor Molly

Keith and I went out to have a little visit with the donkeys early this evening. Molly and Ambrose were greedily chomping on carrot tops that we'd brought them as a treat, when Keith noticed that Molly was bleeding on her right hind leg.

On closer inspection, we saw that she had sustained some kind of injury with bloody scrapes and scratches on her leg. She was also favoring the leg by not putting much weight on it.

I fetched a clean, wet rag, some antibiotic ointment, and my camera.

Keith kept Molly occupied with carrot tops while I cleaned the wound and applied antiseptic. I have to say that Molly was very patient with my ministrations. Even though she was hurting, she must have intuited somehow that we were only trying to help. That I had been making a habit of handling Molly's legs and hooves these last couple of weeks in preparation for a visit from the farrier (more on that later) was also a help. She was used to having me handle her legs.

The rag I used was mostly white, and it quickly turned mostly pink-red. It seemed like a lot of blood from a fairly small wound, but we soon figured that it was a "lot" in the same sense that blotting a cut finger on a white tissue can look like a "lot." In terms of real blood loss, she was doing fine.

After tending to the wounds you can see in the photo, we noticed that she also had a series of similar wounds on the inside of her leg. To us, that meant that something - a dog or coyote, perhaps - had bitten her. True, the donkeys do like to nip at each other (hey, you saw the video), but we quickly ruled Ambrose out as a suspect. Donkey teeth are straight across, good for nipping off grass, but not so good for sinking into a leg with results like this. Besides, I've only ever seen them give light, playful nips; they don't get that carried away.

We know that whatever came after Molly did so some time between 12:30 and 6:00 pm today. It is very worrisome that one of our donkeys was attacked in the afternoon this way. We didn't hear a thing, either, but then we weren't outside much during the time when it happened. Times like this, I wished they brayed more. We haven't heard them bray since their first two days here.

After we cleaned Molly up, she went inside the barn to lie down. She seemed forlorn, not her usual inquisitive, playful self. Well, that lasted all of five minutes before Ambrose came bounding in like a pesky little brother telling the drama-queen big sister to get over herself. He rousted her with a few head-butts and nips to the neck, and the next thing, there they were grazing in one of the paddocks. By that point, she seemed not to be favoring the injured leg so much.

We've checked on them a few times since and are about to have one last, bedtime visit. Just, you know, checking.

UPDATE (August 22): another critter check at 7:00 this morning showed they were both grazing away in the smallest paddack. Molly seemed much better, and does not appear to be obviously injured. I'll clean her wounds again in a little while.

Comments

[Chrashing]

Hello Janis,

That wound does look bad. Glad there hasn't been any troubling updates. Hopefully Molly and Ambrose taught the animal who's boss an not come back for more.

I hope Molly's healing well.

[Janis]

Hi, Chrashing! I wish I could say that Molly's wound has healed up perfectly, but will have to say the results are mixed - even a week after the awful encounter. I'll do a proper post about it shortly.