Not what most of them had planned for the day. We usually haul 2 or 3 out to an equestrian center a few miles away every 6 months, when Bert comes thru on his "route". He lives in Idaho, but spends most of his time on the road in the western states. He said he had been home 2 days in the last month or so.
This time I asked him if he would come out & check everyone's mouth, just to make sure we were getting everyone that might have a problem. So he & his brother Rick, came out this morning & started going thru the herd. I'm sure most of the donkeys have never had their teeth checked, but they really did pretty good. Out of 21 animals, 3 of them have no back teeth, so they didn't need to be checked. Out of the remaining 18, only 5 had to have something done, which really surprised me, I figured there would be more. Poor old Quilla, had a wolf tooth growing out the side of his gum, so it got pulled. Jenny & Daisy both had lots of hooks & waves. Buddy Brat had a real nasty hook, John said about 2 inches long. I think that might be an exaggeration, but it was pretty long.
Found out Rusty the mule is missing 2 front teeth, one on either side. Bert said it looked like they had been knocked out from the scarring on his gums. When John took him out of the pen, he took off like a race horse, halter, lead & all. Do you think he would let us catch him to take it off? Some of that was Jack's fault, every time we'd get close to them, Jack would take off, & Rusty too. Finally we ignored him, so he came over & hung around where we were doing teeth, John walked right by him & didn't even look at him. A few minutes later I walked over & took the halter off. He doesn't like to be ignored I guess........!!!
Some neighbor's brought in their 3 horses, so we all had a full day, especially Bert & Rick. We left the 4 minis until last. Thank goodness they didn't need any work, even if the guys get on their knees it's still hard on their backs to work on the little guys especially if they've already worked on a dozen or so.
We even checked Tula out. I told Bert her story & how she is so afraid of being touch, but we could put her in the squeeze & see what happened. She really didn't want to go in there, it took 3 of us to get her ran in & then she tried leaning on the corral panel that we were using to squeeze her with. Bert finally tied a lead rope around the panel & pulled from his side, while John, Rick & I pushed from our side. Finally got her "squeezed" & Rick checked her mouth. She's not mean or anything, she is just untrusting & afraid. Once she realizes she can't get away, she will just stand & take whatever is happening. She let him put his hands in her mouth & never moved. Thank goodness she didn't need any work done, we all decided that putting arms thru the corral panels & trying to work with tools might be a good way to get an arm broke, if she did decide to panic. But she was a good girl.
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