After the cows came my first herd of donkeys. English-Irish, 3 jennies (females) with foals at foot:
Patty Pinto and Petra – Patty is a bit of a cow and if I didn’t know better I’d think that she was a cow for the way she carries on sometimes. Her daughter Petra is a bit precious too. But they are miniature donkeys and fetch a good price for their offspring so I put up with them.
Wanda White and Wisteria – Wanda is a little larger than Patty Pinto and is fairly shy as well but no trouble at all. Wisteria is gorgeous and has remained a miniature. She produced a female foal of her own last year who’s just gorgeous.
Folly and Freckles. Unfortunately Freckles, the little foal belonging to Folly, was injured in transit and he never fully recovered. He died a couple of weeks later.
I’m often asked: Why donkeys? I usually respond, well why not? But mainly I find them to be highly intelligent, loyal pets. And they serve a purpose here at Spring Creek: their job is to eat the weeds, which are the only thing that grows in abundance during the dought!
The donkeys are my favourite of all the stock, and you’ll hear plenty more about them in the stories to follow… After this initial starter herd came 3 Australian donkeys from an old Italian guy at Bundanooon, and then another 8 or so that wondered onto the property from a neighbouring farm after their owners left them behind.
Add a successful breeding program and we now have about 25 donkeys in total and have begun selling them as pets.
