There Will Be Friends

Thank you all for the kind comments and good wishes for the new donkey in the neighborhood.  For those who are worried that he seems very alone, which he has been....he actually does have two other donkey companions (a gelding and a jenny) and two horses to hang with.  Or he will have.

Because he is not gelded, he is going to have stay separated until that can be taken care of.  The rest of the herd is in a pasture just 20 feet away so he can see them and he has gotten some supervised meeting over the fence.  The other two donkeys are very attached to each other and the gelding is rather possessive of HIS girl so intros are going to be slow and gradual. Once the new guy is gelded and there is no chance of making any unlooked for babies, he will go out with them and have friends.  By then they will, hopefully, have made friends over the fence and there will be no drama. 

The poor guy is very alone, but at least it is temporary here.  This is why stallions should be gelded unless truly worth breeding AND you can provide them with friends and room to move.  Too often, studs are confined to small lots all by themselves because they can't be out with others.  That is not a good life and it makes for miserable, frustrated, dangerous animals.  It is why studs have such a bad reputation.  You can't lock someone in a prison cell and constantly tease him with all the good things in life and expect to have negative repercussions.  This fellow, who is still nameless, will have a herd of his own soon.  And a name.  Feel free to leave suggestions:)

And, since the camera scared the new donkey and I have no more pictures of him - how about puppy pictures instead.  It rare to catch a Border Collie puppy sleeping so enjoy them while they last:)

A Proud Enabler

A few weeks ago, I got a call from my friend Dave.  He'd stumbled on a donkey who was in a very bad spot and he was thinking about going to get him.  He knew the donkey had badly neglected feet and was considered "feral" and....maybe he was hoping I'd talk him out of it.  I'm not sure. 

Some crazy lady had bought this donkey two years ago and put him in her round pen and he had been there, untouched, alone, with absolutely no shelter ever since.  She did at least throw some hay to him once a day (most days anyway) so at least he didn't starve. 

Being the proud enabler that I am, I told Dave that, of course, he should get the donkey!  As always, it wasn't that simple because the donkey was 4 hours away and couldn't be touched and the owner was crazy.....Things got complicated.  I got a couple more calls where I provided more enabling and time went by and we weren't sure what would happen and then - boom, here's the donkey! 

He showed up on Friday and the poor guy is just terrified of humans.  Dave has spent the past couple of days just quietly hanging out with him and, this morning, they finally made contact.  I was scheduled to go over and work on feet anyway and I also planned to spend time with the new guy.  He really is a very sweet, beautiful donkey without a mean bone anywhere.  He is just soooo scared.

Moving slow and offering lots of treats we were able to handle him a bit and show him that not all humans are bad.  We didn't want to stress him out, but we also wanted to try to clean his feet up at least a little so he could walk better and not be in pain.  I slipped him a bit of Dormosedan Gel, which is a sedative.  It works really well in cases like this if it is dosed and administered properly and carefully.  At a low dose, it takes the edge off and gives relaxation without making the donkey truly woozy.  If you work slow and careful, the donkey will remember what happened, but without the haze of fear.  It is a good way to start off if you can't take the time to fully earn trust first. 

With the help of a lot of treats, some good drugs, much sweet talk, and some massage, he let me pick up all of his feet and give them what may be his first ever trim.  I also got a good look at all his other parts and he does still have all of them despite being billed as a gelding.  This guy (who has never even been given a name - I think it is going to be Jessie, but that is not a 100% yet) has some minor surgery in his near future to fix that little problem.  Aside from that, he is a very well built, sturdy young donkey.  I guess his age to be about 4 1/2 -5.

Unfortunately, I don't have many "before" photos of his feet because I am having camera issues again and many of the before pics turned out black.  I did get a few taken mid-trim.  This is the bottom of a foot after 4-5 inches have already been cut off the toe. 

You can see where one of the side walls has begun to curl under and fold over the sole.

The whole foot is falling over sideways and, if left to continue like this, his entire hoof would have fallen over on its side.  Over time, this causes major damage to all the bones and ligaments of the leg. 

I trimmed the foot level to coffin bone inside the hoof and, within a couple of weeks this will straighten out and look level with the ground as well.  His leg and hoof need time to adjust to a normal stride.

Bad pic, but I hope you can see how much of this needs to come off.

Getting there...

 There are nice feet hiding under all that mess.

I probably could have taken another 1/2 inch off this toe, but this foot was one of the longest and I took about 6 inches off it.  It will need time to adjust and I didn't want to push our luck today.

A few more trims and these will be nice feet.

A few more weeks and this will be a very, very nice, sweet donkey and I am very happy to be an enabler for this.  This is what matters.

Milking Time

More Babysitting

The baby was here again for several hours.  We all went for a long hike and then he "helped" demolish some boxes for me.  Ian is a very sweet, helpful sort of puppy.

I think he has been spending too much time with cats though....

"Who me?"

Poor Ian, he does have his troubles though.  He might have the perfect life, but his tongue has grown faster than his mouth...

Such a terrible problem.

Especially when he goes to visit the bank and his cuteness overwhelms all the tellers to the point that they let him sit on their keyboards.  Like I said, too much time with cats.  Too bad he didn't manage to transfer any money into our accounts.

Oh well, his snout will catch up soon enough.  In the meantime, we all might as well enjoy it.

Compass Points

Things to do on Vacation

I've been on my Fall staycation and I had thought I would get all kinds of blogging done, but.....I've barely looked at the computer.  I keep thinking of things I should write about and then I turn the computer on and some new catastrophe has happened, everyone is obsessed with politics that make my teeth hurt, a new scandal has erupted and....I suddenly feel the need to go clean the barn, walk the dog, rub donkey ears, watch paint dry....just about anything to avoid the rest of the world. 

Instead of thinking about any of that nonsense I've been doing this instead:

Riding Buddy is finally getting some saddle time with Tessa and they are getting along very well.

Getting used to Tessa's loooong strides and her silly quirks takes a little time.

Tess is very intelligent, honest and always willing to try, she also tries very hard to communicate with her rider and she gets frustrated if the rider doesn't understand.  RB and Tess have been learning to talk to each other and they are starting to have some nice conversations. 

When the sun come out, I work on this job....I can't believe I already have to paint my new house. 

If I'm not painting, I'm finally finishing the battens on the woodshed.
And hiking with my dog.
And even sitting on my couch reading a book at night. Gasp!

And when all that gets tiresome, I take a little break for some of this...

Last winter, Ben's cart got an extreme makeover.  It had a few issues that made me a bit nervous about using it so my friend Dave took it to his place to do some repair work.  It was a good thing too as one of the shafts broke in half when he unloaded it from the trailer.  He took it all apart and replaced the shafts and gave it a very spiffy paint job.  I bought Ben a proper harness and I think he looks quite handsome in his "new" gear. 

And now, my couch, and the rest of my staycation, is calling me again.  Maybe I will even get around to actually writing.  Maybe.  If i avoid looking at anything else on the Internet. 

Kissing Booth Contestants

We're always trying to figure out ways to generate more farm income around here and we are thinking about building an old fashioned Kissing Booth.  There is some debate about who should get center stage though.  I tried to tell the donkeys that they only had to work one at a time time, but they disagree - where one goes, they all go.  So, which one would you choose?

There is Ramsey, the ever-popular Chocolate Charmer, who is always first in line and the last to leave.  You will likely get a kiss from him whether you pay for it or not.  He might cost us more than he earns. 

You could try to charm the sweet, shy Emma of the coy smile....

....and the oh-so-soft nose.

Then there is the new fellow in town - a quiet, rugged, square-jawed man of mystery....

...who carries his scars with quiet indifference and tells no tales.

And then there is the Big Guy - Benjamin of the big brown eyes and soft, smooshy nose....

...Except you have to work hard for smooch on this snoozle. 

Ben is insisting on cyber smooching only.  You can love him from afar all you like, but he reserves the right to hide in corners if you actually show up.

And Connor....He says to Hell with icky, yucky kissing.  We should just charge people to throw the frisbee for him and we will be rich in no time!