1st July 2006
and it is proving to be a very busy day, but I must take some time to tell you about all my friends. There are four geldings called Lawson, Raffles, Champers and Benjamin, then there are the mares, Gigi her daughter Giselle, and my special friend Capella, although she is a bit preoccupied at the moment because there is a new arrival, a filly foal. At the moment a person with no name because the humans can't seem to make their minds up. The vet came and filled out the passport application forms and rolled around in the straw a lot under the pretext of looking for things called whorls but I can't imagine he found any in all that fluff.
Its funny really, humans have finger prints, we donkeys have hoof prints but they all seem to look the same in the mud, so they have to tell us apart by things called whorls which is the name given to the little circle formed where our fur goes round and changes direction; then there are stripes - sometimes on our legs, on our backs and across our shoulders, then there is the colour of our noses and the shape of things called chestnuts on our forelegs. Did you know humans have whorls in their hair too? usually on top of the back of their heads, but I don't think they have chestnuts.
I have got whorls, one each side of my head behind my ears, one in the middle of my face, and two low down on my chest; my chestnuts are black and oval and they are inside my front legs above my knees. Some donkeys have triangular shaped chestnuts and even pink and brown ones. Some of us have dark stripes on our legs, lots and lots almost like a zebra, others just have one or two or a black splodge on each fetlock which is like your ankle; my mum had a white mark on each heel, but I haven't. The next thing that people look for is our cross which is made up of two stripes, one goes down the middle of our backs and the other goes from one side to the other, finishing somewhere near the top of each front leg. Every donkey has a different cross, some are fat, some are wobbly and some are thin, some have pointed ends and some have bits missing, and some donkeys don't have one at all - mine is perfect !
Next time you see a donkey have a look and see, and find out why we have a cross. Anyway the vet was never going to find anything in all that straw, and there's another funny thing, you humans have beds on legs, we donkeys have lovely soft ones on the floor. Sometimes they are made of straw like Capellas, or they can be made of shredded paper or woodshavings or even cardboard, now that sounds funny, but its true. The best beds are lovely and deep and kept really clean with all the wet bits and pooh taken out every day; that's called mucking out. Some poor donkeys don't have beds at all, and not even a stable or a shelter to keep the rain and wind off them and that is cruel because we don't have waterproof fur like horses and ponies; when we get wet the water goes straight through to our skin and we get very cold; but there's a funny thing if it snows on us the snow just sits on top of our coats and gets deeper and deeper like a snowdonkey, I wonder why that is?
So much for the busy week, its really hot and we aren't going to a show after all!! What can I get up to now?
8th July 2006
Now have I got news for you - it was Junior Members Day here today and we have had a really good time! Capella was her usual grotty self because she couldn't have her own way, but I was perfect, I always am!!
Of course you don't know what junior members day is do you?
Well a group of children come to learn about keeping donkeys and some of them are going to Hereford Donkey Show with Champers, Gigi, Giselle and Benjamin to show them in the junior handlers classes, so they practised standing still - we do that rather well - walking. We are quite good at that - trotting - mmm - picking up hooves - mmm - its funny how we can do all those things perfectly at home but get to a show - doubtful!!
Anyway before anyone goes anywhere there has to be a lot of hard work with the grooming kits - you don't know what a grooming kit is - Where on earth have you been?
A grooming kit is the name given to all the combs and brushes that are used to keep our feet and coat looking nice. There are different ones for winter and summer, some brushes are made of hard plastic, those give you a lovely scratch where it itches, some are made of stiff bristles which get all the mud and dust off and then there are lovely soft ones which make my coat shine. There is a thing called a hoof pick which is used to get the mud and stones out of our feet so they don't make us sore, and combs for our manes and tails, and of course we do have face flannels except not like yours. We use cotton wool and water, a new piece for the skin round each eye and another for each nostril, and then of course there is the sponge for our b****ms. Then there are scissors but you have to be an adult to use those and hairsprays to keep the flies away and make us look shiny. Gosh I never knew there was so much.
15th July 2006
Hello again I am starting to have serious doubts about being a donkey, you see this week my human has been getting all excited about going out to LUNCH. Now I ask you what exactly is lunch? It seems that if you are human you eat lots of different things like cereal, meat and fish, vegetables and fruit, pastry and bread or biscuits, and guess what my human had to take something called a dessert to this special lunch and that was made of nuts and sugar and eggs, chocolate and cream, all mushed up together. Well I don't know much about what these things taste like, but it seems to me that it's a lot of bother this cooking; I know because I can stand by the kitchen door and watch.
We donkeys eat cereal just like you, because cereal is oats and wheat and barley and maize, but yours is cooked and made into Weetabix, porridge, cornflakes and cocopops; they sound funny. We eat oats that look just like your porridge before it is cooked and maize, which even for us is cooked and comes out looking like cornflakes. Sometimes all the things get mixed together with squashed peas and beans and the outside of the corn seed which is called bran and then herbs are added to make it taste and smell nice, and its called a mix; well they couldn't really call it anything else could they?
You must never ever give us meat because that would poison us, and bread and biscuits aren't very good either. Vegetables, now that's another story you humans cook them till they are soft, like mashed potato, but we mustn't have potatoes or tomatoes because the plants are poisonous; our favourites are carrots and sugar beet, all lovely and crunchy but we mustn't have too many because they are very fattening. Sometimes we have sugar beet after it has had the sugar taken out for you humans, it gets all chopped up and the sugar is squeezed out and the bits left to dry, but it is very important to soak those dry bits called 'shreds' so that they are all squiggy again otherwise we would get tummy ache and be very ill.
Fruit, now you are talking, we love apples, oranges and even bananas and if you would like to give us a special treat a ginger biscuit or a peppermint would be very nice. We eat grass and hay and straw mostly because out tummies need lots of coarse bits to make them work properly. In the summer when the grass grows fast we often eat too much and get a bit fat, so it isn't a good idea to let us just do what we like; so sometimes it is good to keep us off the grass with a helping of some nice golden stalks from the oat or barley plant to stop us getting bored.
In the winter when the grass doesn't taste very nice and doesn't grow very much we can have hay - that is grass that has been allowed to grow long and then cut and dried in the summer sun before it is squashed into parcels tied round with string, called bales; but not too much in case that makes us fat. But one thing donkeys and you humans need lots of is WATER, and we don't like it dirty or spat in either. Buckets of water are best rather than troughs because they can be washed out every time and brushed clean before they are refilled, and do you know we might drink two whole buckets a day so you must make sure to keep an eye on them.
I must go and see what's happening in the kitchen you never know there might even be a spare carrot.
22nd July 2006
Water, Shade, Flyspray, Water, Shade, Flyspray, Water, Shade, Flyspray Phew, it is hot, hot, hot, and the weather man says it is going to get even hotter. Now I am beginning to understand what it must be like for all those donkeys in really hot countries, the ones where my ancestors probably came from in Roman times, except it isn't the same because we do have water here and it comes out of taps into buckets, and they only have some muddy water hole if they are lucky!! I am just reminding you that we donkeys are just like humans and need lots more water to drink when it is very hot. But, its not just about water - did you also know that our white bits can get very sunburned? I don't have many white bits except on my nose and round my eyes, and they aren't white really, more a dirty cream but some donkeys are nearly all white and their owners need to put sun blocking cream on them else they will get badly burned.
I had a donkey friend who was a lovely cream colour all over and her face got burned by the sun and it went all red and lumpy and never got properly better and it really spoiled her beauty, I would hate that to happen to me; so remember the sun cream for our delicate little areas.
Next we must be able to stand away out of the sun, especially when we are either foals or very old because our body thermometers don't work so well - we do need to be able to get into our shelter or under the trees. We probably can't promise not to pooh in there or even not to chew the trees but I am sure we will all try very hard. Actually I am not sure that I know what a thermometer is. I'd better ask our human.
Fly-spray, well we all know what happened last week don't we? The buzzy things do seem to get out and about in the hot weather and they are so irritating so anything that keeps them out of our eyes and noses is good; you could spray us like my human or make us some cool headgear that dangles over our eyes and noses so the flies can't land on us, or if they do then they get knocked straight off. Sorry folks I am off to stand under the trees it's far too hot for anything else - heehaw
29th July 2006
Now I know it is a bit of a while since I have written my diary but so much has been happening. I had the luxury of going to a show and got so excited because I looked really smart and managed to win my class which meant I would be able to go into the championship judging. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, I was so anxious to do everything beautifully that I took off at a trot that was so fast that my human couldn't keep up, and she had a huge pain in her leg and had to let go of my leading rein. I was very sensible though and when I felt the rein go loose I stopped and came back to see what had happened, and even helped her go back to the lorry to sit down.
We donkeys do have to be sensible sometimes and this was one of them, so I am so glad I learned all the words, like walk on, trot on and come here Lolly.
