So the donkey has been making progress, she is finally shedding her winter coat. Very slowly and in ugly patches but she is shedding and is getting a pretty nice gray coat with a nice shine to it. She enjoys being brushed and has no issues with brushes or the shedding blade which is nice. She enjoys having her ears scratched still and is very content to stand around if you have a desire to exercise your fingers around her head.
Daisy is doing very well with leading, we haven't had a "parking brake" issue or a "take off" issue for a good while now. A couple of months ago she slammed me into a wall in an effort to break free and eat grass, something she had been getting worse about. Walking along without a care in the world and then suddenly taking off to the front or side in an effort to break loose. Then it became body bumping me while taking off. Then she made the mistake of slamming me into a wall while doing it. I got a good nail puncture on my thigh, ripped pants and was scraped up but didn't let go of her. I decided that months of being diplomatic weren't working so out came Mr Stud Chain. After two weeks all issues seem to have been resolved and Daisy has been leading like a good, behaved donkey ever since! So nice considering I remember the times I
fought and fought with her.
The farrier was out on Thursday and trimmed everyone and I have the pics I promised. First is the right front, the worst foot. This is the one that had the "blowout" and had all of the old frog taken off. If you look, there is a tiny little frog growing in there. Showing heel height and new hoof shape.
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| Right front |
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| Right front |
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| Right front hoof shape |
Only picture I seemed to have saved for the left front, showing heel height
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| Left front |
Left rear, showing how much little heel we now have, nice trimmed frog.
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| Left rear |
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| Left rear |
Right rear that has also been trimmed up pretty extensively. Showing heel reduction and nice trimmed frog
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| Right rear |
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| Right rear |
So I realize my pictures really kind of suck, unfortunately these were done at 6a all by myself with a donkey who is afraid of cameras. She doesn't like the click or the flash, go figure, so it was an interesting adventure. Mr Stud Chain made a brief visit when Daisy thought it would be acceptable to pseudo-kick at the camera and reminded her that it is absolutely, positively unacceptable to kick for any reason. Especially when I am holding her foot! Will try to get some pictures of how she looks overall now that she is brushed but she looks so goofy with her patched, shaggy coat.
All in all Donkey is doing very well and I am very pleased with her progress. I am very happy that I have a donkey that is easy to catch, easy to lead, easy to brush and can be handled easily. We are still working on accepting fly spray and have given up on
hoof soaking for a while, maybe I will try trailer loading as the next project. That may be interesting.
Yay Daisy! Well except for the kick, good girl for cooperating. Her feet are looking much better. I don't like how she has no frog on the fronts though. Does she have thrush? Can you use sprays around her, like fly spray? If you can I'd spray some salt water on the bottoms on her hooves to help kill/prevent thrush in those frogs. She is looking a lot better though. I really wish my donkey was more cooperative. I really need to be able to handle him. The flies are making sores on him and he blew two abscesses in one hoof. It looks awful. I think I'm going to give up and put him in a tiny pen and just make him deal with me handling him. I have to do something. He is shedding out though. It's very patchy and ugly, but his summer coat is so dark and gorgeous. I'll try to get pictures soon. I'm just happy to be caught back up on reading your blog. Sorry I've been gone so long. :)
ReplyDeleteI missed your comments, welcome back! She had pretty bad thrush as a result of the very long heels and bad frogs. She ended up with 5 days of Pete's Goo to fix most of it and she doesn't have thrush since we trimmed her. She is *ok* with fly spray, I am not sure if I could spray her if I was holding a foot up. Crazy donkey.
ReplyDeleteI would recommend penning Zep up for a week or so until you can tame him. I know Daisy wouldn't be tame if I hadn't forced her to stay around me for 3 weeks while she was on stall rest. The guy before me had her for 3 years and could still barely catch her. Sometimes you just have to force the issue :) Good luck and post about it!
That's crazy! Zep was three and never touched when I got him too. I'm definitely going to try it. I can't stand to see him suffering and not be able to do anything about it because I can't handle him.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad Daisy's feet are doing so much better. I bet when your trimmer gets her heels down her frog will be stimulated again and start growing. :) Keep up the great work with her.