A huge thank you to those adoptive parents of Baby Merlin. Dragon Slayers has a long list of therapy animals you can adopt, such as: camels, yak, miniature horses, sacred cattle, and the list goes on and on. It makes a perfect gift for your friends or family.

Baby Merlin was born August 25^th, a miniature donkey with beautiful long ears, four tiny hooves the size of a 25-cent piece and pure white, with interesting gray spots all over his body. He stood 18-inches tall and weighed 15 pounds.

This being his mother’s first baby, Baby Merlin was a little premature, poor little donkey mother had no milk to feed her baby. So, Baby Merlin had to be fed a very expensive foal replacement formula, causing a big expense for Dragon Slayers, a non-profit, free animal therapy program for the physically challenged.

With feed bills threatening the Dragon Slayers very existence, Baby Merlin had to be put up for adoption. Not to come live with you, but to have many, many moms and dads support him by sending a tax-deductible donation to help feed Baby Merlin. The adoptive parent received an adoption certificate plus a baby picture of Baby Merlin. The small bag of foal replacement formula cost $36.99 and it lasted Baby Merlin about 5 days. This gradually increased as Baby Merlin grew until he was weaned at 4 to 6 months of age.

Baby Merlin will be trained to be a therapy donkey, spending his days at Dragon Slayers interacting with physically challenged children and adults, reaching people only a very little magical donkey can do. A little donkey that does not care if you can’t walk, or speak or see, he just loves you with all of his heart and would never, never tell anyone your most secret conversations or ever, ever make fun of you. Baby Merlin made appearances at the Aptos 4th of July Parade and walking down Pacific Avenue handing out fliers to promote an upcoming play at the Santa Cruz Actors' Theatre.