Wednesday, April 15, 2020

WHAT NEXT...........????

Does anyone know what's happening or what will happen?  Walmart is starting to look pretty decent in all areas, which is a good thing.  

One thing about the donkeys, they don't watch TV or read newspaper, so their life is as usual.  Which means ours don't change much either, we work to keep their lives normal. 

 The fly season has started, I always have fly traps out.  But thru the winter usually just one.  Once the season starts, I don't want the flies to have to wait to get in the trap, so I start hanging more traps.  I'm up to three, so far, I think my record is 5 traps at one time.  This time of year even with our cold nights (28* last night, will be almost 80* today) it's a heavy breeding season for flies.  The fly traps are jamming out with thousands of flies and most of them have a little white egg sack on their fanny.  It would be bad if all those eggs got to hatch out, so I'm glad the traps do such a good job.  Too bad between the traps and the predator wasps, all the flies aren't eradicated.  LOL

I started Rosie on her annual regiment to hopefully control her ventral midline dermatitis summer flareup. Her lesions on her belly never go away they dry up in the winter, but stay scabby.  The link in the sentence above is to an article that talks about treatment with ivermectin every 4 weeks because it does not kill the adult worms, so you would only be killing the juveniles.

Last year I read an article about using Panacur for 5 days in a row to kill the adults.  Two weeks later start a weekly worming for 3 weeks of ivermectin to kill any juveniles that might hatch.  We did that last year and she had a good summer, with only a couple of flareups.  So that's what we're doing.

Boaz and Cisco are having to have zinc oxide put on their sheaths now.  Usually by this time Boaz would be headed for Colorado, where he doesn't have the problem but this year is different.  Cisco has the problem all summer, but he gets checked every morning, so we can manage him and not have a bloody itching out break of sores and habronema.  I always tell people if there is one fly on the property it will be on Cisco.  I assume he has a lousy immune system.  Over the years I've tried different immunity building supplements for him, but never saw much of a difference, the flies still hang out with him.  So every morning I head out with my jar of zinc oxide and visit the boys.  I'm sure they roll their eyes and think, "here she comes again, there is really something wrong with this woman, she comes out, says hello, gropes me, and then gives me a cookie".  LOL

A couple of the donkeys did get dentals this week.  Dr. Debra comes to Cochise County every month for dental and chiropractic work.  We've been taking in a couple of donkeys at a time, by the time everyone gets seen, it will be time to start over again, probably......!!!

This month was Cochise and Olivia's turn.  Olivia has been in an outstanding home for years, but her Mom has a lot of animals and she thinks Olivia needs more individual attention and a job.  So she came here to see if we could figure out what kind of a job she might like.  She hasn't been out for training to run yet, mostly she's been getting use to her new lifestyle.  She has turned into Justin's one and only love, of course she's a nice size standard and he is a nice size mini.  So there isn't much hope for the relationship, but he hasn't given up yet.  If some of the other geldings get too close to her, he yells, screams and if they don't get the hint, he will body slam them.  It's a wonder someone hasn't picked him up by his neck and shook him, but so far they tolerate him.  Olivia ignores him......LOL

We weren't sure how it would go.  Olivia does not like her feet messed with and is pretty determined to let you know.  Didn't know if she had ever had dental work done, so we didn't know which way it would go, but she did just fine.  Dr. Debra said she had a real nice mouth and a few hooks but not bad.










She did so well, after her teeth were done, John took her out for a little snack of fresh grass and weeds while Cochise met his fate.  



Next was Cochise.  We were pretty sure he hadn't had dental work.  He's young in fact he is probably even younger than we thought.  I think the woman said he was 5 or 6 when we picked him up.  She got him away from some ropers and had him less than a year and wanted him to be with other donkeys.

Dr. Debra said he still has his baby caps which on horses usually are gone by about 4 1/2 years.  Most people think that donkeys might be different but I haven't heard of a study being done to prove it.  So we will probably just say he is 5.

Cochise has very fast feet, he's never kicked any of us, but has let us know to not get too close with a muck rake when cleaning his pen.  So we thought he might be a little judgmental about having big metal things in his mouth and rasping his teeth.   We made sure Lynn went along as our enforcer if necessary.

He acted like it was no big deal.  Of course Lynn was scratching him all over the whole time, which is Cochise's favorite thing to do......!!!  Dr Debra said his mouth isn't as pretty as Olivia's, she said it was a good thing he gelded, he doesn't need to pass along his genes.  His feet are pretty wonky looking too. 



So far nothing definite on when racing at either track might start.  The asphalt track put out word today that they would like to have races in May if at all possible.  So they are just waiting for things to start opening up.  I would imagine they have everything prepared, it will just be a case of telling everyone when and where and unlocking the gate.

Heard thru the grapevine, that the dirt track director wants to start up as soon as possible also.  Both tracks will be making up race dates I would imagine.  Before all this started I had 4 race dates that conflicted and had said on those nights I would race whichever track was being the nicest to me.......!!!! LOL

Unfortunately I haven't had a race on the asphalt track yet this year.  I've had 2 races at the dirt track, finished 3rd and 1st, so by my plan, I would probably go dirt.  Just have to see what happens I guess. 

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