MEET MACHACHO

 I always like to give a special name to donkeys that come in without a name or have had a hard life.  Machacho has had a very hard life judging from his looks.  A woman called me this morning wanting to rehome him, although the reasons she gave, didn't quite match the actual donkey.  What she probably didn't realize is when we saw him there is no way we wouldn't have taken him.  

She said she had only had him a few weeks and she had too many animals and he was having to have hay pellets because he couldn't eat hay, and she couldn't afford to keep feeding him pellets.

The obligatory welcoming committee when the trailer returns to the property.  There were more donkeys, but by the time I got ready to take a picture they went to the other side of the trailer to get a better look.

Machacho is going to be a long term work in progress, he hasn't been wearing a fly mask and has lots of habronema larvae damage under both eyes.  He has edema under his belly, and wounds at the throat area.  He also has a large open area in his right armpit.  Quite a few other assorted small cuts and scraps all over.  

Long term he has a large open area above his left nostril that couldn't be anything except man made I'm pretty sure.  He also has a smaller opening on the right side.  We had another donkey years ago that had a similar smaller opening that looked like someone had punch a hole thru to maybe use a bull snap instead of a halter to lead him.  Sha'ba also had both ears cut about half off.  Sha'ba was a term of respect for an old man in Arabic  Machacho is a word for a young man in Spanish.  Machacho isn't young, but I don't know if he even had a name when he was young.   He has a special one now. 

He was shut down when we picked him up, not involved in what was going on around him although he leads and does what  you ask of him.  We got him home and the first thing Suzanne and I did was give him a bath.  I'm not sure, but I think he liked it once he figured out we weren't going to hurt him.  His ears started rotating and he started looking around.  

We had to put Willie in his pen, he wanted to help, got in the trailer and in general was in the way.  Willie seems to be taking over Big Gus' job as amb"ass"ador.  He likes to "help" when anyone is doing something outside.  He's a lot easier to work with though, he has manners..........LOL

We gave Machacho some cut up Bermuda hay when we got him home and he ate it just fine.  Tonight he got more hay and some senior feed and had no trouble eating it, so I'm not sure what the problem was for the woman to have to feed him pellets.  Tomorrow we'll try him on some hay pellet mush, but I have a feeling he will eat just about anything we put in front of him.  

Tonight I went out to help let the donkeys out and take off fly masks.  I had some animal crackers in my pocket and although Machacho wasn't going out I stopped at his pen and yelled for him to come over.  He came over head up, ears up and trotting. He already thinks animal crackers are pretty good.  When I first tried to give him some, he sniffed at them a long time before he took one.  By  tonight sniffing wasn't necessary, but watching your fingers is pretty important if you want to keep them attached to your hand....LOL.  I doubt that he's had many cookies in his life.    

We'll probably give him a day or two to acclimate to all the donkeys and the change in his life style and then we'll let him out to roam around.  

SUZANNE'S BACK FROM COLORADO

 She and Koshare got back Sunday afternoon, after a whirlwind week-end.  It sound like Koshare lived up to his reputation.  He has always been an interesting character, with a mind of his own, which means he isn't a "go along to get along" type of guy.  

He has done really well at pack burro racing and about the only time he goes anywhere in the trailer it's to a pack burro race.  Travel for hours,  get to camp out with other donkeys, lots of people in the area, head for the middle of town, gun goes off and run, run, run for the front of the herd.  

Hmmm......  the Mancos Burro Fest wasn't a race, it was a gathering of some of the wonderful artists from the area, to showcase their talent and also to pay homage to burros, who were instrumental to the settling of the state of Colorado.

That means that rather than racing, there was a parade, and obstacle course and the burros being on main street with the artists for the public to meet and greet.  From what Suzanne said, Koshare did NOT get the memo about the difference between racing and a festival.  She said he was head up, ears up and prancing like a race horse, pretty much when he came out of the trailer and stayed that way the whole day.  

Of course people love bad boys, so he got a lot of attention, while Suzanne tried to stay in control.  Koshare doesn't have a mean bone in his body, he loves people and I've never seen him kick or bite people or other donkeys.  But he is very strong and can be very determined, which kept Suzanne busy...!!  LOL  From what she said the parade was interesting, Koshare decided to head for the front, so he got to do a lot of turning in little circles.  

The bridge that tilts, no problem

The obstacle course had  8 obstacles and 8 minutes to finish it.  Suzanne said they finished the first 5 obstacles in about a minute or a little more.  Then they came to the dreaded water crossing which put a screeching halt to their forward motion.  Suzanne said she even stood in the water, and Koshare didn't care.  It's a timed event with points for each obstacle, so he would get more points if he did the obstacle and 1 point if he at least tried it.  I guess the rest of the course went about the same.  

Squeeze thru walls of hay, without eating it

Stomp thru piles of limbs, why not

And the winner is...........Koshare complete with a wreath of sunflowers which incidentally he tried to eat.  Suzanne plans on putting it back together.........!!! LOL

Suzanne with a beautiful painting of Arlo by Elizabeth Kinahan the featured artist of the 2022 Mancos BurroFest. This was the prize for Team Koshare winning the obstacle course.  It will look really good in our new office.

Koshare isn't the only one that didn't get the message about behaving and being a good team member. Our friend India and Sparkle Nelly made the trek from Tucson to participate in the BurroFest.  

Not sure but this might be the beginning of their run, Nelly has all 4 feet on the ground, LOL

Looks like she wants to be a dancer

Nope, not what Nelly had planned for the day....

Nelly seems bound and determined not to participate, at least on 4 feet.....

After the obstacle course the burros were suppose to go up on main street for an hour or so, with the artists so the people could visit with them.  Koshare ended up in TIME OUT, tied to the trailer instead of participating in all that attention.  He was still hyped up, head up, ears up and ready to go, Suzanne said her arms were tired.......!!! LOL  

It sounded like a good time was had by all, even Koshare had a good time, just not as good as he would have liked..........!!!   LOL  Hopefully next year Koshare can try to repeat his win, only this time finish all the obstacles.    Suzanne plans on working with him in the meantime, so he knows the difference between racing and  a festival.......!!!  

Tombstone 2022 video

 I was looking for the finish for the Creede pack burro race last week-end and ran across this wonderful video from the Tombstone race this spring.  Thanks, Roland and Tin Cup for a great opportunity to get a glimpse of what it's like to be in a race.  

TOMBSTONE 2022

The monsoon is here with all the heat and humidity that brings.  I think they said a 60% chance of rain this week-end.  We've had a few........very few sprinkles so far and that's all. 

  

CREEDE FINISH THIS WEEK-END

 What an exciting finish by 2 great competitors and their handlers.

Couldn't get much more exciting than this.........!!!  Little Buttercup and Yukon are really battling for the win.  Yukon has won the 1st 2 races this season, but Buttercup is fighting back for the season.  It will be fun to watch who comes out on top.  

WILLIE'S STILL GOT HIS FLY MASK ON...........!!!

 After losing 3 masks in the first 5 days he was here, I consider it being a miracle.  Actually it isn't a fly mask, it's a fringed fly bonnet.  For some reason it's staying on and seems to work just fine as a fly deterrent.

Back when Willie was still working for a living with his lifetime owner

I think this was in 2014, looks like fun playing Wagon Train, thanks for the pictures Sue

We had hoped with Rosie gone Willie and Jasper might bond, so Willie went in Rosie's pen.  Hmmm..... they could have been on different planets and basically ignored each other, so Willie is now in Big Gus' pen which is quite spacious compared to Rosie's.  

All in all he's settled in nicely.  Don't know if he's been around jennies, but he thinks Bonnie is his type of girl.  He's not as obnoxious as Beefy, but he does like to go down to her pen and escort her out when the pens are open.  Beefy is usually there also, one day John went to let her out and there were 5 donkeys in her pen and it isn't spacious.........!!   LOL  Poor little Casper the white mini mule was trying to squeeze into the pen also so John ran everyone out.

Actually Beefy's hormones have FINALLY leveled out to gelding status, thank goodness. They said it would take about 6 months, and that's about how long it took.   He's still attentive to the girls, but he's not so focused you can't get him to cooperate.  

Our monsoon season has started, we had a monsoon shower yesterday and also today.  Not much rain in it, but enough to get our hopes up.  Unfortunately it raises the humidity and the temperature is already over 100* and the nighttime temperatures don't cool off because of the cloud cover.  Makes living in the desert interesting.......!!!

The flies of course love the humidity and heat and the fly traps stay busy.  Boaz has to be doctored every summer because of fly damage especially to the side of his mouth.  He is so cooperative to doctor don't know if he appreciates getting rid of the flies or if it's the cookies he gets when I'm done.  I had a couple of fly masks made, that cover the corner of his mouth, so the flies don't have an open pathway directly to his mouth.  Hopefully they will give his mouth a chance to heal.

This is a picture one of John's cousins took of wild burros over by Lake Havasau in Arizona.  Arizona is suppose to have the most wild burros of any state.  There aren't any around us, mostly up north or over by California.  

Nugget's opinion of snow

 

This is so funny and probably many people in Colorado thought the same thing when they got up the morning of June 1, 2022.  

Nugget's opinion of snow

Mamacita, who now has a wonderful home in California with her BFF Sasha, is Nugget's mom. We were told she had 5 babies in her life, he was the last one about 3 years ago.  

        

Mama and Nugget got a chance to see each other at the race in Tombstone a few weeks ago.  Don't know if they knew each other or not, but they were friendly to each other.  I put this picture on the blog at the time it's the only one I have of them together.  

We're now officially closed for tours until the end of August.  Sure is quiet around here and our mornings aren't quite as hectic.  After a couple of days the donkeys are going to wonder where the people with the red solo cups are.  In other words the animal crackers are going to be few and far between for the next few weeks.  

They'll have to be satisfied with mesquite beans.  We've been watching the trees and although it's really dry, they are setting clusters of beans.  They are still green and not filled out, but I'm sure the donkeys will be ready when they ripen and start falling........!!!  Hopefully we won't have a heavy crop of beans and we can monitor their time out enough to control their eating without having to keep them in the pens all the time.  

Willie the new boy, is a people donkey.  He's not been with donkeys since he was young.  He hangs in the general area of donkeys, but isn't real excited about them.  

This is the fly mask type he's wearing these days.  The 1st 5 days he was out and about, he lost 3 regular masks.  Unfortunately he's a big enough boy, my normal donkey masks are too small.  I only had 3 masks his size, so in desperation I dug this fringe mask out, we got for John Henry last fall.  So far it is staying on him. Went on the internet to buy back up and no one has them and don't know when they'll have them in stock again.  Bummer........!!!   

I guess he is going to take Big Gus' place as amb"ASS"ador.  He comes running when we go outside.  He also watches the gate, hasn't quite figured out the process yet, but I'm sure it won't take long.......!!!