Cute True-life
I knew I had to save Moo’s life when I saw him at the zoo...
Mina Alali, 26
Pulling up outside our local pumpkin patch in October last year, I turned to my boyfriend Alex with a huge smile on my face. I’d spotted something that made me very happy.
‘They have a petting zoo here,’ I grinned, excitedly.
‘Right up your street,’Alex, 26, laughed in reply.
My whole life, I’d had a real passion for animals.
And at our home in Sacramento, California, Alex and I already had our pet pig Merlin, lizard Muffy and three rats.
Call me Dr. Dolittle, I never turned down the opportunity to snuggle with some cute critters.
And I couldn’t wait to see the petting zoo.
Only walking in, it was absolutely horrifying. The zoo was in total chaos. The animals were in distress and unruly kids were chasing them. There were little piglets, ducks and chickens who were clearly still babies, having been taken from their mothers too soon.
What’s more, their pens were tiny – the water bowls were either contaminated or empty.
Seeing the horrible scenes, I wanted to burst into tears.
I felt in complete disbelief, and it was only about to get worse.
Walking to another tiny pen, I couldn’t believe it when I saw a young calf lying there lifelessly. Running over, I knelt beside him. ‘Hello, little one,’ I soothed. The calf looked malnourished and depressed – and couldn’t have been more than 10 days old. And his mum was nowhere to be seen.
‘We can’t leave him here like this,’ I looked at Alex.
We weren’t strangers to adopting animals. And while we didn’t live on a farm, I knew Alex and I could give the cow a far better life than this horrible zoo.
‘I’ll go find a member of staff,’ Alex said, agreeing with me.
Only, a beef farmer had already expressed an interest and we’d have to be placed on a waiting list.
Tearfully saying goodbye to the baby calf, I felt sick – would we ever see him again?
But just two weeks later, at the end of October, we received a message from the zoo.
The Jersey calf is available, he’s yours if you can pick him up in 48 hours, it said.
We’d love to! We’ll see you soon! I messaged back straight away.
‘Just till he’s big enough to join a herd,’ I told Alex.
I wasn’t being naive – I knew the calf couldn’t live with us forever.
However, I was going to give him the best rehabilitation I could.
Deciding to name our boy Moo, we had just two days to get everything ready for him.
I had to purchase hay, food and fencing to make Moo a makeshift pen in our garage.
Having a calf in the house was undoubtedly unusual.
But I
