Suzanne has been in Indiana this past week and will be for the foreseeable future. She had to go back for a family emergency. She had planned on going back the 15th, for a couple of weeks, but her plans got moved up a little.
Of course that leaves John and I taking care of the donkeys. We've had volunteers here almost every day, so it hasn't been a problem. The donkeys have actually been fairly cooperative about going in their pens. I'd say without having to be bribed, but they always get a piece of carrot when they go in the pen. In fact some of them will go in their pen and if someone doesn't put them in quickly, they will go out and stand outside until someone shows up with the "goods". They want to make sure the payment is forthcoming I guess. Thanks to Nora, Barb, Gloria, Susan, Kelly and Aiden we really appreciate you coming out and helping with the donkeys, many hands make the job easier for everyone. And the donkeys love to have more people to hopefully have treats.
LaRoy has learned to pick his ropes up and shake them to get people's attention and hopefully a treat. We had a tour today and he was doing his thing. I gave him a treat each time and I think he's got it figured out. He would shake the rope and drop it on the ground to receive an animal cracker. As soon as the animal cracker disappeared, he'd pick the rope up again. We did this 3 times and he was flawless, do I assume he will try his new skill when we have another tour.
We actually had a little bit of rain a couple of nights ago. It rained off and on most of the night, but we really didn't get much actual rain. This morning it was 23 degrees when we got up and the first morning the buckets had a film of ice on top of them. Of course that means the hoses are frozen until about 9-10am depending on when the sun decides to show up.
I haven't put fly masks on the donkeys the last couple of days. It's getting warm enough in the afternoon that a few flies come out, but I'm sure the donkeys appreciate not having to wear a mask.
3 comments:
Our paper today has an article that I found interesting and thought you might. I did not know that donkey skin was the thing most used by many people. I knew people used milk, some eat donkey meat but this article told me different. It is used for meds in some countries. The article is in the Tampa Bay Times, the tital is A media excutive left his career to help miligned donkeys. This is in th Dec.12, 21 paper. This man set up a rescue called Oscar's Place near the Mexico border, He saves donkeys headed to Mexico. I found this a good read and learned a little from it.
It's called ejiao and is used in Chinese medicine and has been for 1000s of years. Recently they are saying it helps men with ED, so it's really become a hot item in some countries.
Donkeys are being bought in 3rd world countries which destroys their economy. The buyers or traders go into an area and offer maybe as much as a man could make in a year. So he sells his donkey, BUT, it will cost him that or more to replace it. Years ago I had an Oriental man call me to see if I had any donkeys to sell. At the time I didn't know about the ejiao trade, but I would imagine that's what was happening. What's really horrible is, the skin comes off easier if they are skinny and dehydrated, so they go thru days of being deprived of food and water. It's a horrible business.
When I read the article it kind of turned my stomach. Thanks for the extra info. I don't think I could even drink the milk but I was raised on a dairy farm and my choice at meal time was cow milk or water.
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