A MINIATURE donkey foal has received a prosthetic limb in a move with broad implications for horse and livestock owners.

The Auburn University in Alabama is offering new hope for owners of animals that would normally have to be put down because of injury or deformity.

Emma was a two-day-old miniature donkey foal when she was delivered to a veterinary teaching hospital in April with a severely deformed hind limb.

The College of Veterinary Medicine and the Hanger Clinic worked together on amputating the limb and fitting a fully functional prosthesis.

"It has been a group effort on behalf of many caring individuals willing to go to great lengths to save her," assistant professor Dr Fred Caldwell said.

Giving horses and donkeys a prosthetic limb is uncommon because of their size and the narrow weight-bearing characteristics of their legs.

Most serious limb injuries result in the animal being put down.

However, Emma has "thrived" with her new-design kevlar-and-fibreglass prosthesis.

"She absolutely loved it from the get-go," Dr Caldwell said in an Auburn University publication. "It was a very impressive design and she did very well in it. She has progressed to the second iteration of her prosthesis, which doesn't incorporate as much of the limb and allows her more range of motion.

''She is getting stronger; she's growing and doing wonderfully."

As Emma gets older, she will probably need to go through eight or nine different variations of her artificial leg before reaching full growth.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/news/emma-the-donkeys-new-prosthetic-limb-offers-...