FIRST DAY INTO BURROLAND

 First day was actually Thursday.  We let them in at 3pm and a lot of them figured out the gate was open and took advantage of the situation. 

Since they didn't know I was opening the gate, after it was open and I didn't have any takers, I rang the bell we use to get them to come into the pen area.  I figured if I got them that far, I would pick who I thought might be leader material and get them to follow me across the wash.

When I rang the bell by the time I got over to the gate, I had a customer.......Cochise came from somewhere across the wash, he was moving fast enough he almost beat me to the gate.  

He must have left a message with the rest of the donkeys on is way, because it didn't take long for them to catch up.  

Here they come.....!!

They actually came in pretty good a couple of hours later for evening feeding, we were surprised that they weren't more difficult to round up than they were.  I used the quad to hopefully head them in the right direction thru the gate and towards the pen area.  Of course they would prefer to continue moving around looking for the tastiest weeds and grass.  So I become a predator on the quad, by making a lot of noise and harrassing them as best I can.  Even on the quad they can go places I can't, so I have to get off and get close enough to them to make them think I'm going to eat them alive if they don't start moving............!!  LOL  

John and Suzanne put them in their pens once they get over there.  They are usually pretty good about going in their pens, but occasionally some of them run past the pen area to find more green stuff before they give up.

We thought since the 1st day went so well, we assumed the 2nd would also go well............wrong assumption.  They were NOT the least bit interested in coming in to eat "equine jerky" AKA hay.  

We've had enough rain to have weeds everywhere and most of them are 2-3 foot high.  I put on my best predator body language, hopped on the quad and headed out for battle.  

Before I ever saw a donkey I almost ran over a rattlesnake on the trail, I managed to miss him with the quad as he was scrambling to get off the trail.  All I could think of was, if I run over him, the aggressive tires on the quad will probably flip him up in the air..........wonder where he will go?  My first thought was, he'll probably land on the quad with me.........!!! LOL   About that time I saw a bunch of donkeys, and got around behind them to head them towards the open gate.  They got far enough ahead of me to have time to stop and graze, right in the middle of the area where I last saw the snake  disappear into the high weeds........  YIKES......I wasn't about to get off my quad and wade into that mess although the donkeys seemed to think it was fine dining.  

They finally decided I wasn't giving up and went thru the gate, to become Suzanne and John's problems, while I headed back into battle.  It took a long time to round up the stragglers finally got down to 4 missing.  We all were looking everywhere.............no donkeys.  I finally went outside our perimeter fence to get a better view of areas we can't see from the trails.  Found Justice, outside the fence.  One of the neighbor's was working the road with his tractor, said he'd ran Justice back in the fence 3 or 4 times and he kept popping back out.  

This time he stayed in, I went back around and Suzanne had seen the other three and sure enough Justice had joined them in Burroland, and none of them were interested in coming in, I think it was Roper, Willie and Tula.  Finally got those 3 in, but Justice peeled off in the run to the gate and I figured 3 was better than 1, so I stayed with them to the gate.  Came back, spent probably 1/2 an hour or more roaming all over Burroland and never saw hide nor hair of him and it was getting dark.  I headed thru the gate and John blew the air horn we use to signify everybody has come in.  John said he came in at speed, so even though I never saw him, I assume he knew I was there.................!!!  LOL   Fence fixing time, but first we have to figure out exactly where he is getting out 

Today they didn't get to go over there because John and I are going to the stock car races in Tucson.  Although I no longer race at the asphalt track, our son Rod and good friend Larry still do.  Don't think Suzanne would want to face that mess by herself at feeding time, so they are on the 10 acres only.  They have let us know this isn't right.  When we let them out before noon, they went over, checked the gate came back to let us know it was closed, went back and forth and seemed to think we aren't too bright if we can't figure out what the problem is...........!!! 

This is why we are never bored.........LOL

GETTING READY FOR TOURS STARTING SEPTEMBER 1ST............

 September is fast approaching and of course we don't have everything done we planned on this summer, but a lot has been accomplished.  

The painting is done on the office/store, and we're getting ready to lay the flooring.  Suzanne is working on scraping the underlayment floor today, so once that's done the "laying" can begin.  We didn't find anyone to do it, so we are bravely jumping into laying laminate floor.  Thank goodness for You Tube..........!!  LOL   At least hopefully the videos on You Tube will be enough to keep us organized, or at least out of trouble.

Got the test results back for Roper's surgery on his cheek.  We were hoping it would be benign, but it came back as Soft Tissue Sarcoma.  Because of where it was, it was too close to his mouth to get clean margins, which would have been ideal.  Dr. Howard put chemo into the surgical area, we will watch him closely in case it does come back, not sure what the next step would be.  He's only about 4 years old, is a very sweet boy and deserves to have a life.  He will not be adoptable because of an uncertain future and will stay here in sanctuary.   

So far we only have one tour scheduled after we re-open.  We talked about having an open house but Suzanne wants to have a 25 year celebration next spring of BlackJack, John and I starting the rescue.  We didn't know it at the time, but that's what happened.  We will expect all our donkey loving friends to come out and say hi, when the time comes.  Probably a good thing we didn't plan an Open House now don't think everything will be ready by Sept 1st........!! 

 A woman got in touch awhile back and wanted to come out and look at and possibly trim some donkey feet.  Veronica has been studying hoof trimming, especially donkeys, but she only has a couple of them to practice with.  She wanted to come out and trim a little and yesterday was the day.  She was here most of the day, got some trimming done and talked about donkeys.  She wants to come back, the donkeys liked her so she's welcome anytime.  

Siggy getting his pedicure, Bella waiting her turn in the next pen

We had a bit of excitement this morning.  Suzanne was gone to town, Debra hadn't left yet and I went to doctor Kris.  He came in with habronema damage on his "boy" parts particularly his sheath that I doctor every morning and it's just about healed..........!!!

Anyway I doctored him and was getting ready to leave.  Waylon had been pawing the ground and I told him a couple of times to quit.  When I went to give him a treat before I left I found out what the problem was.  He had managed to trap his head in Kris' hay bunk, their pens are side to side. Kris still had hay and Waylon had ran out of hay in his bunk.  He had ran his head between the top and middle rail which is almost wide enough to allow a comfortable fit.  Notice I said almost, I couldn't get my finger between his neck on the top and his throat on the bottom.  To add to the problem his head was trapped between the side of the bunk and one of the pieces of pipe that holds the hay in the bunk.  He had very little wiggle room side to side on that, for all practical purposes he had none.  

Debra ran to find John and tools, of course he had to come without tools to access the situation.  Came back with what he needed to take out 4 nuts and bolts which unhung the bunk, Debra held it up while I helped him get his head out.  

Thru it all he just stood there, which is one of the differences between a horse and donkey.  Most horses in the same situation, would have panicked and ended up hurt.  Waylon just pawed the ground until I finally noticed the problem.  When it was over he wanted treats and when we quit giving them, he and Kris went off together in the wash without a care in the world....... !! LOL

No pictures, we were all busy........!!

We plan on letting the herd into the 20 acres we call Burroland this afternoon around 3pm.  They will have a couple of hours to search out beans and succulent grasses before we "try" to get them back in their pens for supper.  In a perfect world we would find Tula, the head jenny and tell her to go to her pen and she would.  In the process the other donkeys would come out of the weeds and follow her.  It's been a long time since we even tried that, and she use to be a pretty good pied piper.  We also have Kris, Waylon and Roper that have never been in Burroland, I'm sure they won't be tired of exploring when it's time to come in.  So it should be interesting, hopefully we can get them all rounded up before dark..........!! LOL

SEPTEMBER 1 IS APPROACHING FAST...........!!

 We closed this summer for tours because of so much going on, with the new office/store, Suzanne's mobile home which hasn't actually made it out here yet.  Was suppose to be here in July and maybe June.......didn't make it, still promising before the end of August.  I don't think any of us are holding our breath.  

The office got here when it was promised and one of our valuable volunteers has been working almost full time on the electric and plumbing.  

The sheetrock is in, plastered and waiting for paint, which we picked up last week.  I guess John and Suzanne will be painting, maybe I can be a gopher.  John is in town today picking up painting toys like trays, rollers and long extensions for the ceiling.  

We also picked up the flooring which will be the last big project, before installing the bathroom fixtures, Suzanne's office furniture she has in storage, and setting up the display cases for the store.  We also have to get shelving for the storeroom.  Right now, every building on the property has donkey stuff, food, medications you name it, it's somewhere, we just don't always know where. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly where something is we're looking for.  Hopefully we'll have enough room in the storeroom to keep almost everything in one place and spread out so we can see it.  

Of course. it is the monsoon season and for once we're actually having a typical monsoon, which means rain.  It seems like feeding time is a good time to have rain, I think we're all getting tired of being wet, but the rain is nice.  It almost looks like the midwest with all the weeds and everything growing like crazy. 

  

If it ever stops raining for a week or so, the unusual growth will quickly die and we'll be back to looking like a desert.  Right now our backyard has weeds 2 or 3 feet high.  The problem with that is snakes can hide if they want.  This is the time of year they are feeding a lot to get ready for winter.  Over the years we've had 7 donkeys bitten by rattlesnakes and almost all of them were in Sept.   

The 2 new boys Kris and Waylon got their feet trimmed this week.   Didn't get any pictures, we were all too busy ducking and running.  Waylon wasn't too bad, but Kris REALLY didn't want his feet trimmed and had no qualms about letting the world know his opinion of such an insult.  We warned Dan so he was prepared and used his big straps to Scotch hobble them.  Kris even Scotch hobbled made use of every inch of a 20x20 pen, even being tied.  

Their feet hadn't been taken care of and they really needed trimming.  Hopefully next time won't be quite as traumatic for them or Dan.  He's pretty mellow and easy going and quick on his feet even plans to be back the end of September.......LOL   

This is Suzanne's mom's cat, Booger watching her ever changing view from the RV.  Suzanne said she watches the donkeys every morning when they gather before going in their pens for breakfast.  

Speaking of breakfast here is the line of donkeys following their leader to their pens.  If you look to the right Suzanne is in the lead in a yellow shirt.  It's nice when they line up like that, but it doesn't always happen that way.  Then we get to chase a reluctant donkey as long as they want to play the game.  They seem to enjoy it much more than we do......LOL  What's really irritating is after chasing one back and forth as they run and kick up their heels, once they make up their mind to go in the pen, they walk in like it was their idea.............!!! 

ALWAYS HELPFUL

 One thing about donkeys, they are very helpful and very very observant.  If anything new comes on the property, they have to check it out.  If someone is doing something, the donkeys are right there making sure it is done correctly.  

Roper checking out the tractor, probably not sure that's where it belongs

Bella "helping" Mike hook up the electricity to the office/store.  She stayed with him for the whole job  

        

   

Time for a break

John's back is a good place for Buddy to rest his head

UPDATE ON KRIS AND ROPER

 Yesterday Suzanne and I went up to Gilbert to pick up Roper and bring him home.  He doesn't act like anything happened.  This morning he was out playing with some of the other geldings, he's eating and taking treats of course, treats are his favorite thing.  

He's on antibiotics and the external stitches will need to be taken out in about 10 days.  I assume that means the ones on the outside of his cheek, I think there are some inside his mouth too, hopefully they are dissolvable.  I should be able to take out the ones on the outside, but not sure I want to tackle inside his mouth.  I'll call them next week to make sure.  

They took large margins of surrounding tissue and injected the area with Cisplatin a type of chemotherapy, it's used for a number of human cancers also.  The tissue was sent off and we should get the results back this week.  Hopefully they got it all.

Dr. Howard, Roper and Suzanne doing Roper's pre-exam

We also asked them to check his lumbosacral spine, which is in the area of where his tail attaches.  His tail starts really low compared to most of the other donkeys and his hind legs move oddly.  They x-rayed him standing and after he was ready for surgery they took x-rays while he was on his back.  No abnormalities were seen, they it could either be a birth defect or a past injury that has healed.  He was a roping donkey, so it's possible he was hurt at some time and nothing was done, just no way of knowing.

Kris has had 3 days of treatments on his sheath and is really doing great.  The first day was a battle of wills and strength.  He won the strength, and we won the will.  Once we got him in the "redneck" squeeze his strength didn't make such a difference.  He was scared although the renters that were taking care of them tried trimming their feet, but I'm not sure how much they really messed with them.  

Yesterday morning before Suzanne and I headed for Gilbert we rushed his doctoring, and he did really good.  We didn't have to "crush" him in between the corral panels and he didn't kick at all.

I think this is Waylon checking out the gator

Both Waylon and Kris are a little "short for their weight".  This is Waylon, he doesn't have quite a much weight to lose as Kris.

Kris is still rather shy about getting a halter put on him, but this morning Suzanne got that done.  She led him into the squeeze and she stayed in there with him feeding carrots, while I doctored.  He just stood there never offered to kick and no squirming.  Tomorrow I might try to doctor him in his pen without a halter or the extra corral panel.  Or I might not...........!!! Depends on his level of participation.......LOL  

Kris is on the left and Waylon on the right.  You can see that Kris is pretty pudgy with pretty good-sized pones over his ribs.  Not sure who their friend is, it's hard to tell when they have on a fly mask and the picture doesn't show all the donkey.  We have quite a few grey roan ones.

UPDATE ON ROPER

 Roper's surgery on his tumor went very well they said.  BUT, Dr. Howard is pretty sure it is cancerous.  It has been sent off for testing to make sure and hopefully to find out what kind.  Dr. Howard took as much surrounding tissue as he could and also put chemo drugs in the area.

As soon as he got back to his stall, he started looking for something to eat, typical behavior for a donkey.  We were going to pick him up today, but we had a horrible rain storm about 3am last night.  Since we were having sheetrock delivered today, I called and asked if Roper could recuperate at the clinic another day and we'll pick him up tomorrow.  The sheetrock guys will be here Saturday, so we wanted to make sure the sheetrock was under shelter until then.  

Had a man named Randy call this morning wanting to know about volunteering and offered to come out and help with getting ready for the sheetrock delivery.  The sheetrock was supposed to be here after noon sometime.  Randy stayed until about 3pm and had to leave.  About 15 minutes later the sheetrock showed up........!! LOL Suzanne and John didn't have much to do except put the spacers under the sheetrock and then get the trailer in the shed in case it rains. Judging from the clouds in the background that might happen, although the sun is shining now.  

That is 44 sheets of plywood, believe it or not.  I remember sheetrock from when I was a kid, it was a lot thicker and heavier.  

We've ordered the flooring, although the walls will have to be painted before the flooring is installed.  We're going to try to do the floor ourselves.  Should be interesting, I know if I get down, I'll have to find something to pull myself up with, or wait for someone to come and get me up........!!!  LOL

This morning I finally got a chance to clean Kris' sheath, it's swollen and has open sores on it from habronema larvae.  I'm been doctoring him every morning since he got here, in a rather hit and miss way, because of a lack of time.  At first he was OK with touchy/feely, and every day less touchy/feely and more squirming and jumping.  Yesterday he resorted to kicking in my general vicinity, which isn't something I enjoy.  This morning he was a little more insistent with his kicking although he never aimed for me.  I decide it was time to introduce him to our "redneck" squeeze.  It is an extra corral panel, attached to one end of a standing corral panel.  They go in it, and you close the extra panel on them, so hopefully they can't get good aim at your arm or break your arm with a direct hit.  

He started out with attitude, which didn't make me happy.  Suzanne was on the front end, when he kicked I punched him a couple of times.  When he didn't kick, Suzanne stuffed a piece of carrot in his mouth.  Didn't take but about 5 or 6 times for him to figure out, kicking......bad, not kicking.....good............!!! He let Suzanne take pictures and let me finish.  Wonder what he will do tomorrow morning, we have to go up to Gilbert and pick up Roper, so I might not have time to "duck and dance", hopefully he will remember all those carrot pieces............!! LOL

Suzanne hasn't shared her pictures yet, but the sores look better than I thought they would.  There's a few habronema larvae attached, I covered them with wormer, which usually kills them pretty quick.  Hopefully if I can get rid of them, he'll have a chance to heal quickly, although right now the flies are pretty bad, because of the rain and accompanying humidity.  High temperatures are OK, but the humidity is miserable.  Us desert rats aren't fans of humidity especially day after day.........!!!  

ETC

    Roper came in a little over a week ago.  We took him to the Equine Clinic up in Gilbert today to have a tumor on his cheek removed.  They will do the surgery tomorrow morning and we will find out if it is cancer or not.  We're hoping for the best, he's really a nice donkey in the time he has been here he has shown himself to be alert, curious and very easy to work with. 

    They are also going to look at his eyes.  He acts like he doesn't see well when going from light to dark, etc.  His eyes are bright and shiny, so while he's  asleep they will take that opportunity to get a better look.  That easy to work with, doesn't mean he was happy to stand still while they shined lights in his eyes and tried to get a good look.  

    They will also x-ray his hips while he's "resting".  His tail is lower than normal on a donkey and we want to know why.  It doesn't seem to bother him and he moves good but this will be a good opportunity to find out if there is something out of whack.  Since he is named Roper there's a good chance he's been roped, we don't know for sure.  Or he might have been born that way, hopefully an x-ray will help identify if there is a problem.  

 

        We also took BlackJack up to the clinic to see why he is cranky when he's groomed.  They poked and prodded him, and of course he didn't try to bite them, like he's been doing everyone that tries to brush him lately.  He had blood drawn a few weeks ago and it was pretty normal.  Drew it again and it was OK except for a slight elevation of liver numbers.  Nothing really to worry about Dr. Howard said.  

    I am going to start him on some milk thistle which is really good for "man and beast" if there might be liver problems.  Who knows maybe it will improve his disposition.......!!! LOL

    When we brought BlackJack into the clinic, first thing Dr. Howard zeroed in on was "is his hair always this long?"  He thought BlackJack might have Cushings disease   I explained that BJ probably has some French Poitou in his bloodline.  

    We brought BlackJack home and will go back up to get Roper when they call us after the surgery.  Dr. Howard is going to put chemo drugs in the surgical area, in case it is cancerous, we want Roper to have the best chance for a good outcome as medical science can give him.  

    Over the last few days, we have taken in 2 new guys overweight with neglected feet and some fly damage.  They had been in the same home for 18 years, weren't named and we were told about them by renters that were getting ready to move and were worried about the boys.  They had been trying to take care of them and talked the owner into turning them over to us.  

        John and Suzanne were moving bunks around in the mare motel and came up with the names Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings, to go with Willie Nelson that came down here from Colorado a few weeks ago.  All we need is a Johnny Cash and we will have the complete Highwaymen quartet. I guess we could incorporate John into the group..........LOL

    

This is Waylon he is the friendliest one, but I don't think his ears are as long as they look in this picture Suzanne took right after they got here.  Kris is going to take some time, but I'm sure he will settle in once he figures out, we love donkeys.