28th January 2007
I am sure you have all heard your parents talking about having the car 'serviced', well I am beginning to think that we donkeys are having our 500 mile service, first it was our teeth, and now wait for it we have been 'wormed'
Oh yes it sounds grim, oh yes it is grim!!
However before I get too carried away on the 'lot of the donkey', we can all have worms in our digestive organs, even you humans, mostly caused in your case by poor hygiene, lack of hand washing after handling animals and food products, in ours it is because we eat across the ground that we also dung on, so yes if you like, poor hygiene in our case too. Humans and animals alike can be treated for worms by drinking and being fed preparations that kill the worms, the difficulty is that these also kill some of the good bacteria which we need in our tummys to help digest our food, and to ward off colic and even laminitis.
Its nice to know then that there are herbs which can be added to our diets which can help reduce the number of worms and keep us healthy as well, like garlic, and some seeds like pumpkin, melon, fennel and ginger, so reducing the amount of worming medicines we might need.
Worming of one kind or another is essential for our well being, but it shouldn't be just any old wormer at any old time of the year, your owner needs to collect some fresh dung - well they are always doing it here anyway - but this must be really fresh and they must know who kindly produced it so it can be put in a plastic pot and labelled and sent to a veterinary laboratory or the Donkey Sanctuary for analysis - I like that word - it means they look through a microscope and count the worms. Then depending on how many millions they see the vet can design a special worming programme to suit.
Of course the end product is never very nice tasting, some are liquid which is put into food and others are paste which can be squirted from a syringe....... but better to be healthy than sorry.
21st January 2007
My goodness me 2007 is moving along with a bang ? I had a communication from my home in the Welsh hills telling not only of the awful storms but also of a visit from the dentist ? not something any of us look forward to ? did I hear you say ?you didn?t know we had to visit the dentist??
Oh yes, we can suffer from toothache, jaw ache, broken teeth, crooked teeth and even lost teeth, in fact I happen to know that my human has a collection of donkey teeth in a pot in her tack room- no accounting for taste ? she?s probably hoping for visit from the tooth fairy!!
We aren?t quite like you humans of course as our dentist makes domiciliary visits ? comes to our homes, something usually only available to very special humans who can?t get to a surgery. Anyway the dentist ? yes he comes, complete with all his gadgets and tools, his name is Johnny and he is a lovely gentle man, he talks to us first in a nice soothing voice and then very gently his fingers move round our mouths looking for sharp edges on our teeth. My teeth of course are perfect as you would expect so don?t need any attention, and according to my communication so were Patrick?s, but my aunty Genenvive, my mum Georgie and my granny Lottie all had to have some work done.
Genevive and Lottie have some crooked teeth which have moved sideways as they have got older and these had to be filed to remove the sharp edges to make them more comfortable against their tongues, otherwise they might get sore, and that in turn would have made eating difficult. It might sound odd but the top teeth form sharp hooks on the outside edges so they dig into the inside of the cheek and the lower teeth get bars that protrude into the tongue ? I get a shaky head just thinking about it.
Genevive already has a bit of difficulty eating because she is so old that her teeth have grown longer up and down and coarse food gets caught between them and then drops out of her mouth and when that happens it is called ?quidding?.
Anyway back to the dentist - as you can imagine it is quite a long way from the front to the back of our mouths and it would be very tiring if we had to just stand and hold our mouths open wide - so instead Johnny has a special metal arch called a gag which is used to hold our teeth apart, and that allows him to move his rasp along the sharp edges gently filing them away until everything is smooth and our teeth are able to meet with two flat surfaces that can grind the food between them. All that talk of food ? it must be nearly time tea time ? I do hope you go to the dentist to have your teeth checked.
14th January 2007
Yes I am still on course for the 'Perfect Donkey of the Year Award' mostly because the weather has been so diabolical that I am staying indoors.
So based on my single stable occupancy status which allows me sole posssession of that space, I haven't kicked anyone, knocked over any humans in my anxiety to get in first, teased the precocious Annabell or stolen anyone else's food - now for me that is fairly good going; although I do admit it was a close run thing when I did venture out during a brief dry spell; the wind was blowing so hard, that I just couldn't stop myself from rushing around like a spinning top, and because I was having so much fun everyone else got going too. Fortunately herself was out and so didn't witness the ensuing mayhem!!
Talking of herself, we are apparently waiting for the arrival of the Donkey Breed Society Shows Calendar which comes with the Donkey magazine, so herself can plan our excursions for the year. It is due any day now so the telephone lines will be humming whilst discussion takes place as to where we go and when, followed very closely of course by the state of my furry coat - and then how it compares to everyone else's. Annabell will undoubtedly be making her debut in yearling classes, and that will be something to see, as so far she has not got the hang of either walking or trotting correctly, canter and gallop yes, walk and trot no.
Here comes the rain again so I am off to seek the comfort of my stable, and maybe if I look appealing a carrot stick or two may come my way........
7th January 2007
My New Year Resolution ? to be even more perfect than I am already!!
However as my nice neat hooves are turning into webbed feet, that might not be as easy as I thought.
Rain, rain, rain, I hate the rain, where is it all coming from? I am sure that you remember the lorry load of sand that arrived back in 2006 well the human has now added a layer of straw to that and still the mud oozes up round our legs!! And my human is beside herself.
Personally I prefer the warmth and dry atmosphere of my stable these days to the wet paddocks but not every donkey is as lucky as me, some just have no choice and are trying to find shelter where there is nothing more than a hedge to stand against.
If your donkey doesn't have a shelter that they can get to easily then they really do need to have a nice warm and well fitting 'anorak' or waterproof rug ? not the sort that allows the rain to penetrate so that it becomes a cold mass against our fur but one that repels the rain so our fur remains dry underneath.
The most important thing though is that whatever sort of rug it is, that your human removes it every day, and massages the skin underneath with a vigorous grooming so that any pressure from the stitching that could cause sore spots or bruises is relieved. Also if it is one that has straps between the legs to help keep it in place that these are kept clean and soft so they don't chafe.
Donkeys whose skin is perpetually wet can suffer from a skin complaint called rain-scald, which is a very irritating condition causing our skin to become waterlogged at the base of each hair which then tends to fall out leaving behind a lumpy and scaly area without hair that irritates.
The important message for all you humans is that we donkeys are not waterproof so when the weather is as bad as it is today we need shelter, not just from the rain but from the wind as well, and one that we can get into whenever we feel the need.
