Winter Wallop

Puget Sound was walloped with a winter storm this week.  While not as severe as what I grew up with in Massachusetts, for this area, it was pretty major!  We got 8 inches or so of snow, a nice thick layer of frozen rain on top and now it is warmer, raining, and slushy.  The donkeys are hunkered down in their shelters, smart enough to not go out in the crunchy snow.  As we thaw out, it will be interesting to see where all this water goes!

Along with the white stuff, I also had a neighbor's tree take down my power lines and damage my fence.  Luckily for me I am not currently staying at my house but unfortunately for my neighbors, their power was cut! 

On another note, there have been a couple of interesting, and kinda gross, observations of the donkeys recently.  First, I was cleaning their paddocks recently and noticed something funny looking in Cody's poo.  It was a worm.  Yuck!  Specifically an ascarid, or roundworm, which have a pretty long life cycle so I have to be really diligent about deworming them for a long while.  I performed a fecal to see if I could identify any roundworm eggs but instead I found a bunch of strongyle eggs in all of their manure.  Since they are so little I had to do a 5 day course of dewormer but, luckily for me, they really liked the dewormer - especially Vida, who would grab the tube with her teeth!  She's kinda strange!  After the five days of treatment I found another roundworm in the girls' poo so, definitely need to work on that!



My grandparents finally met my little herd and they were greeted with the girls urinating!  It's been a strange phenomenon; when one of them goes, the other will follow and pee on the same spot.  I am not sure what that is all about!  I have never seen such a thing in horses so I don't know if it is some weird donkey thing...



The (great) grandparents seemed to enjoy meeting them otherwise!  I had them feed them treats and they were all very well behaved.



Cody listening to the falling trees

Frida - just concerned about getting her treat!

Vida listening to falling tree limbs

Who's The Boss???

Vida napping (she looks huge!) with Frida watching over her

It would seem that my blog is turning into a monthly posting; not what I intended so we'll see if I can do better!  So it's a new year and with that there have been a few changes amongst my little herd.  Don't go getting all excited, the baby has yet to arrive!  Vida's belly is ever growing and I am pretty sure I saw some baby movement the other day.  With pregnancy has come a temperament change in Miss V - she has become quite dominant over Frida and very bossy.  I've noticed over the past month that she was been pushing her around a bit, chasing her off if she is in her way and even biting at her legs!  Those hormones are making her into a whole new donkey! 

 

Frida has been dealing well with it all.  She had a bit of a bump in the road a couple of weeks ago when I came home to discover profuse discharge coming from her right eye and she was squinting it closed.  I call Dr. Arnold (Tricia) out and we discovered a decent sized corneal ulcer in the center of her eyeball.  After a course of pain meds and topical ophthalmic ointment, I am glad to report that the ulcer has healed and she is as good as new.  She was a wonderful patient - she let me treat her eye easily and give her the gross pain meds in her mouth with little fuss.  She continues to bray at me at feeding time (she even responded when Eric rang the iron dinner bell I have hanging by my front door!) and loves her treats like there is no tomorrow.

Vida enjoying some H2O

Cody continues to be separated from the ladies, though he did have a brief foray with them.  I've been having remodelling done on my house and was talking to the electrician while in the middle of feeding them.  Somehow Cody managed to get the gate between him and the girls open (admittedly I did only loop the chain over the latch, not securing it completely).  He likes to push against it at feeding time with his head so, I guess it just popped open this time.  So I was talking to the electrician when I heard him make a kind of exclamation noise and I looked over and saw a cluster of three donkeys, not two!  Frida and Vida were facing him and he was doing his little excited talking noise to them.  Vida quickly wandered off out of disinterest and Frida followed.  They proceeded to go into his paddock to explore and he check out their digs.  Soon enough the girls came back and Cody then decided it would be a good time to harass Frida, so a bit of chasing went on.  I was able to separate them quickly enough but am not sure how this bodes for integrating the herd.  Especially once Frida starts to come back into season...  Only time will tell I suppose.   

Enjoying a scratch on the poo wagon

Cody otherwise has been a good boy.  He LOVES to roll in his stall, which he keeps very tidy.  He rolls 'cause he's itchy, he rolls when I've cleaned it, and he rolls when he is anxious/mad!  I was taking too long to feed once and he just went and started rolling around!  They are all on the itchy side so baths are in order once warm weather comes - that will be quite the adventure!

I've included a few pictures of their everyday life - I apologize for the quality, I took them with my cellphone!

Enjoying a sunny January day