Tuesday, February 24, 2015

LEG WATCHING SEASON IS HERE....!!!


 1905 miners with their donkeys

We're cooler here than in Tucson and I hadn't really started thinking about doctoring and leggings and all that yet.  A friend in Tucson has 2 donkeys she got last year and said they had sores on their legs.  My daughter in law looked at them and said she thought they had scraped their legs on something.  John and I decided to go in and see what's going on.  

Sure enough, both of them have the bare legs with fly interest and scabby bloody areas.  SIGH........!!!  It's only February, so it's going to be a "LONG SEASON", I'm afraid......!!!  Jody hasn't done a lot with them, except pet and give treats.  We took halters, leads, butt straps, thuja zinc oxide, and men's crew socks, and were met at the fence with 2 alert faces wanting to know where the treats were.  We also took corral panels, since they haven't been worked with, and they are in an area of about 1/2 acre, which could have been a lot of exercise for us.  

Brought out the halters and the 2 alert little faces took off.........LOL  We brought enough panels to build a pen if we needed to, but decided to just use one panel to build a squeeze and see if that would work.  Got it set up and Jenny walked right in.  I messed with her a few minutes and could tell she has training, she's just learned to be evasive.  We decided to take her out of the squeeze and tie her up to work on her legs and she did fine.  She didn't mind me messing with her legs, but she wasn't real sure about putting a plastic bag on her foot and pulling on a sock.  She did OK after a little dancing around.  Of course once we let her go, she walked a little funny for awhile, till she got use to the socks.   

Jack was next and he even stood still for me to put the halter on him, without using the squeeze.  People don't realize how easy donkeys are to work with......IF.........big if..... they know who is in charge.  Once they know you are the boss, they are more than willing to follow your lead.  But it takes a little work to get them to trust you as the leader at first.  

I don't know if Jody will be able to keep up with doctoring and sock "patrol", their legs are bad enough that without intervention, they would really get bad. 

3 comments:

ellie k said...

Did you think the legs had been scraped on something? Was it something in the field that might have scraped them? It will soon be warmer and fly weather. Sure makes a lot more work for you.

Tish said...

No, I could tell from looking at the legs, they've had the problem for awhile. It shows up during fly season and goes dormant in the winter. A lot of donkeys have the problem unfortunately. Wish they all had people that would take care of it. The problem here is Tucson really doesn't have a winter. Jody will take care of them, but she's going to have to become the "head" jenny.........LOL

ellie k said...

It is important with any group of animals I think to establish you are the head guy. It is a shame people get animals and don't know how or don' care how to take care of them. I am glad Jody will take good care of them. She cares or she would have not called you.