Endangered mammoth donkey back in good health
It would take a miracle to save Nutmeg, a sick mammoth donkey.
And Renae Blair, the President of the Blair Haven Farm Equine Rescue and Sanctuary, got it.
“I knew there was just something that we just hadn’t thought of,” she said.
Nutmeg, a mammoth donkey, was given to the shelter by a local family. She is a funny, sweet, talkative and pushy donkey.
“She loves people. She’s extremely playful,” Blair said.
On Monday, Jan. 12, Nutmeg stopped eating and laid down apart from her herd.
“That is just not normal,” she said.
In fact, it was an indicator that Nutmeg was very sick.
Blair raced to look for solutions and find out what was wrong. But nothing anyone had done seemed to help.
But before Blair made the final decision to euthanize her, she got a feeling that she should wait.
“God was telling me, ‘Just give it a second,’” she said. “We were literally three minutes away from euthanizing her.”
Then, Blair’s vet told her bringing Nutmeg to the University of Tennessee might be an option to save her.
“Yes! I don’t really care how much it costs. Find a way,” Blair remembered saying.
The Cherokee County Ga. Fire and Emergency Services team helped load Nutmeg up for transport to University of Tennessee Tuesday, Jan. 13.
The process took weeks, but the university’s team was finally able to get Nutmeg healthy again.
Nutmeg had only one working lung due to a strep and pneumonia infection.
After this problem was addressed, things improved.
“She started getting enough strength and getting better. She was able to get up on her own,” Blair said.
Nutmeg was back by Tuesday, Feb. 24.
The bill was costly, but donors to the cause were abundant.
“What happened was so much bigger than money,” Blair said. “What happened was community. What happened was love in action.”