Donkey Doings at Fynbos

Yesterday set the farmyard all abuzz with the arrival of our three new rescue donkeys.

We were all excited to see who would emerge from the horse box and delighted to see such beautiful and varied donks trot out. There was a chocolate female 9 years, like Bella and a grey long-haired 10 year old female, like Rupert. And then there was a small pale beautiful male with a marked Jesus cross and a flattish muzzle. He is 19 years old.

It took 4 experienced donkey movers to get them into the field – pulling and pushing through the narrow pathway.

Meanwhile our donkeys were locked into our far field in case any of them felt like a scrap but once in the field and things looked peaceful, we let out our 3. After something of a stand-off they pretty much ignored each other. We could see Rupert was terrible excited bounding around, but he told everyone off especially when I was there feeding him.

By this morning they were feeding together, but not yet properly integrated.

We haven’t yet named them, nor introduced ourselves properly, so we will keep you updated.

The Stories of our new donkeys

All three donks are from Chatsworth where they carried wood (woodies) for someone called Rasta. Although not very badly treated, they began work too young and were often overloaded and under-nourished. Then catastrophe hit in the form of a car ploughing into the cart driven by the pale male . Rasta ended up in hospital never to come out and the pale boy sustained a bad hoof injury and lost some of his ear.

After this the donkeys went to people where they were mostly wild and finally they found their way to us.

We are very happy to have them