On Wednesday 6th May 2009 a beautiful foal was born here at the Sanctuary after her mother, Karray, was relinquished into our care last year.

In memory of one of our many fundraisers who tirelessly raised much needed funds to help towards the cost of caring for our donkeys, we have named her Janet.

Janet Thorne started fundraising with her husband, Peter, over 20 years ago and between them have raised an incredible amount of money for the donkeys as voluntary fundraisers. Janet's first venture into raising funds for animals was with a small group of friends at annual fundraising days for her local RSPCA shelter, providing amongst other things a new cattery, an aviary and a small animals shelter.

She then went on to running a stall once a fortnight - come rain or shine - on her local market stall to raise money for The Donkey Sanctuary. Both Janet and Peter scoured the country, often driving hundreds of miles, to see and purchase the right things to raise money for the donkeys.

Sadly, Janet died earlier this year and our Founder, Dr Elisabeth Svendsen, has taken the unusual step of naming our new foal Janet in Janet Thorne's memory. At the moment proud mum, Karray, and Janet are still in our Isolation Unit until she is old enough to meet the public.

Janet was a driving force for good, encouraging everyone to do their bit for the care of animals - donkeys in particular. She was a great ambassador for the promotion of care for donkeys, not only in the UK, but also for their care and welfare needs in the developing parts of the world where donkeys live and work under very hard conditions.

How many donkeys are in our care?

Since Karray came into the Sanctuary in September 2008, we have seen an increase of donkeys being relinquished into our care because of the hard hitting credit crunch. Even here at the Sanctuary, the financial squeeze is being felt.

Between October and December 2008, just after Karray’s arrival, we had 94 donkeys relinquished into our care - an increase of 53%. In comparison, for the same period in 2007, only 44 donkeys came into our care.

Today, we have 2,173 donkeys living at one of our farms or holding bases here in the UK who now have sanctuary for life.

Can you spare £2 to help us care?

If you can spare £2 to help us care for our 2,173 donkeys, please make an online donation. If you prefer, you can make a donation by personal cheque or credit card. Any donation you feel able to give towards this appeal will help to fund our work.

We keep our fundraising and administration costs as low as possible so as to ensure the maximum amount of our supporters’ donations being available to be spent on the care and welfare of the donkeys. This year our fundraising and governance costs were 8.3 pence for every £1 of the total income generated for the charity.

No breeding policy

When Karray came into the Sanctuary in September 2008, she was already in foal. It's quite a rare occasion for us as the Sanctuary has a no breeding policy and only have foals if a donkey is taken in already pregnant.