AND SO IT GOES................!!!

Yesterday afternoon John found Sha'ba with blood all over his fly mask & down his ear. I checked him over & found an area inside his ear bloody. I think he might have poked inside his ear with a tree branch. How I don't know. He didn't seem bothered by it, as much as we were. Some of the others like to play fight & for some reason, ears seem to be used as handles. They come in with blood dripping & all the hair pulled off. I have a fit about it, & they just try to mug me for carrots. So I can only assume that it isn't as painful as it looks. Some of them were very protective of their ears when they came here. I would imagine humans had grabbed ears to try to control them, & it was painful. Don't know why another donkey grabbing their ears with big strong teeth is acceptable.........!!!

Judy is now back to eating her hay & feed again. She went on strike for about 3 days, only eating about 1/2 her hay & almost none of her feed, although she was eager to get out of her pen, & go check everyone else's leftovers. One morning she ate everything & seems to be back to normal now. I just got the chasteberries today. I will start her off with a tiny bit of ground chasteberries & hopefully add a little more every feeding. As suspicious as she is, I would not be surprised if she turns her nose up to the whole idea of eating chasteberries to help her shed out.

We are still putting Daisy's hay in her pen & leaving the gate open, so she can go eat go out & eat with the others if she wants. She usually starts out eating with Lucy, Buster & Frijolita in the outside feeders & about halfway thru, she & Frijolita go into her pen & eat her hay together. So far Buster & Lucy haven't figured out there is more hay to be had. Didn't take Frijolita long to figure it out.

Katie is coming out tomorrow afternoon to show me how to clip Daisy. I'm not sure how this is going to go. I don't think Daisy will mind, she is a pretty mellow little girl. It's been pretty cool here the last couple of nights. I told John if it doesn't warm up, I'll have to drag out one of the blankets to put on her until the nights warm up. I can't imagine what she will look like with all that hair gone, I'll try to take before & after pictures.