Abigail, the resident donkey at Muskoka Heritage Place (MHP), is 20 years old\u2014an event worthy of celebration. But what DO you give a donkey for such a milestone, particularly when she seems quite content with everything she has?<\/p>\n
The answer: watermelon.<\/p>\n
“That’s what she goes most crazy over,” says MHP’s general manager, Ron Gostlin, who recalls putting a whole watermelon in her enclosure which she promptly smashed into pieces and ate to her heart’s content. “There was watermelon everywhere.” Staff had a container of it on hand on August 23\u2014her honorary birthday as no one’s quite sure what late-August date she was actually born\u2014for anyone who wanted to give her a piece of her favourite treat.<\/p>\n
She was born at Muskoka Heritage Place one August night in 1998. When staff arrived the next morning, then-resident donkey Rosie, who had been pregnant when they left the previous day, had her newborn foal beside her.<\/p>\n\n\t\t