Hi everyone I am so excited to introduce you to some of our 2013 that are finally listed on the website for purchase.  For the first time we have pinto coloured foals, along with chocolate, grey and chestnut - something for everyone really!  Visit the donkey page on the Eagle Rock Farm website for more information, and here's a sneak peak at my new long eared friends:

  

  

Sooooo... How cute are these little fellas then?

My poor old donkeys always get a fair dose of the itches from biting lice as the warm weather comes in.  If you're in an area that is prone to biting and or sucking lice - like we are - you'll be wise to start treating your big animals now.  I use EasyDose for my donkeys, cattle and horses and most co-ops and produce stores stock it.  Although it's not cheap, it's very easy to administer being a pour on - so I can manage it on my own fairly easily - and it goes a long way and can be stored easily for future use. It also controls flies which can be nasty in the warmer months and spread pink eye in the cows, so it's a great preventative product in my opinion, even if you don't see any obvious symptoms. 

I've just treated my donkeys and will probably give them a second dose in summer, just to keep them looking great because they tend to rub and itch themselves against anything that doesn't move when the lice start biting, and end up looking pretty shabby.

So how do you know whether you need to treat your animals?  Usually you'll see signs of shabby coat or bare spots where the donks/cattle/horses have been rubbing against posts or trees, or biting their skin to itch themselves. Older animals tend to be particularly vulnerable, as is often the case with parasites, so you'll often see symptoms on them first, like the rump on my dear old Folly in this photo:

 

The good news is once you've administered the Easy Dose, it only takes a couple of weeks for the hair to start growing back and they will recover completely in the short term.  So Folly should be looking fine again in the next few weeks :-)

 

 

I received this question from Karen via the website and thought it was possibly worth sharing my response:

Question:

We are in the process of buying a 7 month old jenny and have just had a sale fall through on a 3 year old.  So we are quite keen to find another jenny so our new foal isn’t too lonely when she comes to us in a couple of weeks time. Can I ask what your thoughts are on having a single donkey as a flock guardian?  Do you think she would be OK and bond with the sheep or do you think she should have another donkey?  Information I have read tends to recommend only having one donkey when being used as a guardian, but my thoughts and most other information I have come across regarding donkey happiness and welfare strongly recommends a donkey having another donkey for company.

My answer: 

It's very true that donkeys are very social animals and don't like being on their own at all. They tend to bray more on their own than in pairs, and over the years I've had a number of customers who have been able to remedy the constant braying of their donks by procuring a new best friend for them in the form of a young donkey foal or gentle older jenny or gelding.  (Older entire jacks can be problematic if they have enjoyed mating rituals in the past but that's another story). 

If there are no other donks around then they will usually bond with the next best fit - in your case, hopefully sheep!  But also humans, if you have the time to spend.  In terms of our own sheep, my donkeys don't care so much about protecting the sheep as trampling down any dogs or foxes that go near them.  Our donkeys even do this in a large herd context - they gang up together against the dogs - and I think they actually do a better job in a herd because I see mine all working together to tackle dogs in the paddock en masse, while some hang back with the sheep.  So I certainly think the benefits of your donkey having a companion would outweigh any disadvantages.

In terms of the young foal you are getting, I wouldn't recommend putting a young 7 month old foal out in a paddock on her own without another donkey at that age, but since your other Jenny has fallen through I guess you don't have much choice.  Only advice I can suggest would be to keep her in close reach to the house and check on her daily, until she's at least a year old and settled into her new environment. Hopefully by then she'll have the confidence and bravado to be out on her own and on guard with your sheep.

Hope this helps!
Jen

 

Well as my little donkey herd is slowly expanding as has the number of enquiries I'm now getting for both donkeys and donkey management tips. Here's the latest addition - Felicity - who was getting the lick of approval from TJ the beagle!

 

So I'm currently compiling a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and my answers) that I'll add to the website now that I'm finally back on top of things at the farm.  If you have any questions at all in relation to buying or caring for a donkey, please drop me a line and let me know, so that I can be sure to cover all bases.

In the meantime, I've added a Resources page to the website where I'll start adding some of my favorite farm reading resources.  There is so much information out there that I sometimes find it hard to get the good, basic Information I need to answer the most fundamental questions around farm operations and livestock management.  When I do find a good one, it is like gold!  So if it saves you some time and helps you deliver better outcomes on your farm, that's great.

The first resource I've added to the site is a brief overview on the Management of Donkeys by Dr John Kohnke BVSc RDA.  This is a good overview of the most common health issues and maintenance needs for your long eared friend.  Kohnke is a feed and supplement business that is very well regarded by other donkey owners, though I haven't personally used their products.

Well it's been a long time coming as we packed up from our old farm and moved to the new one (big, big job!!) and at the same time I've been in the process of registering our herd so our stock will now come registered, vaccinated, microchipped, halter and lead trained and of course they're friendly as can be having been extensively socialised with both adults and children.

You can view stock for sale on the donkeys page - and here's a sneak peak to get you started...

A new day, a new year, a new problem to solve at the farm.  Today it was waking up to a scorcher of a summers day, to find a donkey mum and bub separated from each other.  With mum on one side of the fence and bub on the other, it was lucky I found them before the heat of the day to get some much needed milk into this little fella:

So how long can a donkey foal last if separated from its mum?  That depends on lots of things including its age, the weather, and factors such as predators or dangers to its health.  A newborn foal if separated at birth (as happened to one of ours which rolled under a strandwire fence on birth) could last only a few hours if it can't get to its mum for milk.  A new born could also be rejected by its mum if its too long - because her ever expanding udder as the milk comes in becomes very sore if the pressure isn't relieved, resulting in an intervention to milk the Jenny and take some pressure off in order to allow the foal to drink painlessly.

In this case my feeling is that the foal was separated almost 24 hours earlier from its mum when one of them wondered through an open gate and along the fence line without the other.  The good news is that the foal is 3 months old so apart from its mother's milk it's also eating grass and probably drinking from the dam on occasions, and has plenty of body fat to sustain it over this period. 

So while he was certainly a very thirsty boy, he's had a couple of good drinks from mum now and is doing perfectly well out by the front gate.  It certainly gave me a bit of a scare though... let's hope it's not a sign of things to come in 2011!

Well it's been raining all weekend at the farm... which is good luck at the best of times... but it must have been especially lucky because my Winnie gave birth to her first foal.  Flopsy was born yesterday morning and is teenie... not unusual for the first born... and very, very cute.  His right ear is hanging a little bit lower than the left, which is making him all the cuter! 

Welcome to the world, Flopsy!