At 4 am this morning I arrived at our isolation unit to find Ashley wide awake and already at his stable door waiting for his next feed. He was extremely well behaved and patiently watched while I made up his special foal milk after his last feed at midnight.

I opened Ashley's stable door and knelt on the straw bed and felt a very soft and tiny nose nuzzling his way towards the bottle. With the teet in his mouth, he tilted his head up and began suckling the milk. Within a few minutes every last drop had been sucked from the bottle and I'm sure if there were seconds, Ashley wouldn't have refused it!

What an adorable little donkey foal Ashley is, with such tiny little black hooves and a deep fluffy brown coat. Either side of his stable that was covered in a deep bed of golden straw was Flora with her little foal Zena (read "Zena survives thanks to dedicated staff") who was sleeping quietly while on the other side was Oonagh with her foal Mr Khan (read "A gorgeous bundle of joy is born").

I can honestly say it is a truly wonderful privilege to be one of Ashley's bottle-feeders over the next 6-8 weeks and well worth getting up in the small hours of the morning to not only feed him, but give him some tender loving care. Next time I will see Ashley will be in a week's time (5th November), so will write again then.