It was a very long night. After basically no sleep, the jennet was still refusing to have anything to do with her foal. I also did not have the reflexes to stay out of her way, so at 6 AM I decided to try to foster the foal on another jennet that foaled two days ago. It takes several days for the donkey bonding to be complete. The other jennet, Red Hot Mama, is a heavy milker and a very gentle jennet, and has had several foals before. She was confused, but tolerated the new foal along with hers. It took several hours, but by 1 PM, she was accepting nursing by the new foal without my having to be there petting her and feeding her cookies while she let him nurse. It helps that the new foal is very persistent about going to nurse, he was very hungry. I think he was born around 10 PM last night, and he definitely had not been getting the right amount to eat all that time. So now that she is nursing two, she will have to be on very rich rations for the next couple months. She is getting alfalfa, for the calcium, along with lots of extra grain, and I will talk to my vet about how to feed her. The nursing takes a lot out of the jennets as the foals put on 80% of their growth in their first year. You can watch them pack on the pounds daily!

This whole spring/summer has been challenging. I guess I will start again and see how well I keep this blog. Tonight, went to the barn at 1:30, something made me wake up and decide to check the barn. A maiden jennet (first foal) had had her foal, and was rejecting it. The foal was approaching a couple other jennets. So the first thing to do was get the jennet into a stall of her own and see how she behaved with the foal, without the other jennets around. Well, she kicked that foal hard. So I tied her up and milked some colostrum out of her, and she let down her milk ok, lets me handle her udder fine. But every time the foal came near, she kicked it, or bit it if it was near her head. Now it is 3:30, I have milked out 55cc of colostrum and given it to the foal in a syringe. She has hay and water to eat and drink, and I gave her some banamine. The foal is safe on the other side of a low fence panel, and I am going to get an hour of sleep. Maybe she will relax some and with her udder full, will be more receptive to the foal. It's going to be a long night.

April was a lost month for me here on the farm. Two back to back family crises took me away from home. Dowell managed things back home. Several foals born, and I really missed not being here to play with them right away. I need to figure out their personalities and give them names. One jennet foal has barely ever been touched, and she canters and canters around the pen, but won't let me catch her. I think Runaround Sue might just be her name. Lovely jennet with an elegant gait. Today I caught her twice and petted her for a long time. She will come around, I am sure.

Tonight, another foal born, this one a spotted jack. This is our wooly Little Red Hairy's first foal, and although he isn't even dry, I can tell he will also have a lot of hair. The first time mother is doing everything by the book, had all the signs of foaling, had the foal just fine, passed the afterbirth when she stood up, nice strong foal, and when I left the barn just now he was searching for milk in the right spot. I will double check that he really is nursing in an hour. Of course, this delayed dinner, but worth it.

Two beautiful foals born yesterday, one a dark spotted, the other a dark red. Both as nice and straight, and healthy as can be. I have sent pictures to be posted to our web page. Joan stopped by with her niece and neighbor, so they made some suggestions for names. I chose Onyx for the spotted jack. The dark red jack we named Strawberry Cobbler, as his dam is Strawberry Pie. I will call him Cobbie. Such fun today, when I took him out in the yard with his mother, his first time with a big space, he just galloped and galloped in circles around his mother. Donkey foals are amazing how fast they mature!

Today it is back to normal temperatures for March, in the 50's. The forsythia has just finished blooming, and this afternoon I started to prune them. They grow at the end of the driveway, and are so beautiful every year when they bloom, this large mass of yellow flowers, just when we are all getting antsy for spring. Leaves are a normal part of a donkey's diet, so I fed the cuttings to the donkeys tonight. In the morning there won't be much left, just a few pieces of branches. Tomorrow I will do the otherside. Forsythia blooms best on new growth, so every year I cut the 7 foot bushes down to knee height, to open them us so they grow back with lots of new growth. Next spring, they will be long sprays of gorgeous yellow flowers.  I took this picture over 10 days ago. The fence posts are in, but no boards yet,  where they are doing construction on the road. I hope Dowell will get some boards on tomorrow. Need that pasture.

The breeding season has started, there are two jacks in with a few jennets now. The rest are very noisy, as they want the jennets to know they are interested!

I can't believe how fast spring is this year! The trees are already leafing out, and I have yet to start my tomato seedlings for the garden. We have started to mow the grass, it was very tall and thick in the sunny areas, and needed to be mowed twice to chop it up. Tonight I saw a bat flying, so there must be plenty of flying insects for it to eat.

Came home from a great visit to our daughter's to find spring flowers all over. The forsythia are in full bloom, and so are the white flowering pear trees. The magnolia west of the house is opening, and the redbud outside my office window. This is very early, the earliest I can remember the forsythia blooming is  the last week in March. Today will reach 80! That is too hot for this early, I hope we don't have an unbearably hot summer. The grass needs mowing very soon. Good news is the donkeys that are out in pasture are deserting the hay quickly, as the grass is coming on strong enough to feed them, and is so much tastier!

Getting ready to start painting fence posts. The road is being widened, so we had to move the fence back. Dowell has been very busy these past few weekends. Those posts were 15 years old, and still sound. But we put brand new ones in anyway. Plan to paint the posts before putting the boards on, and it will take 3 coats of paint, I am sure. I can just about hear the sucking sound as the posts swallow the first two coats of primer! Bought the paint today, and now just to wait for a warm, dry day.

On top of that, the daffodils are in full bloom, the forsythia is about to bloom, and the crocus are about over. Spring is early this year. When you look in the fields, they are green!

The first foal of spring was born on March 8. 12 months and one week since breeding, which is a normal gestation. He is a very nice little spotted jack. Since both parents are "wooly" I expect him to be as well. This picture shows him the next morning after he was born. Both are a bit muddy, as his dam, Sing A Long decided to leave the lovely dry stall and have him in the paddock, in the rain. But it gave us a great name for him, Singing in the Rain! It's wonderful to see the foals get up and move along with their mothers so soon after birth.

When this family came to visit the farm, this jennet, Pink Phlox, came right up to the children. Here I can see that she is paying careful attention to the child on her back. Looks like a great home for all of them.

It is getting to be a busy time of  year. Now that spring is coming, we have lots of emails from possible clients. This past Sunday we spent most of the day delivering three donkeys to their new home. Three kids, and the donkeys are going to get lots of attention. I always like to deliver the donkeys to homes like that.

Still on foal watch, no leap day baby, and she still hasn't foaled. She is not late, the gestation can vary from 11 to 13 months, this jennet is now a little over 12 months from breeding, which is a normal length gestation.

No foal last night. That's normal. I am so excited about the first foals coming, I am so impatient to see them. But the foals come when the jennet and foal are ready, not on my timetable. I guess Leap Year Day doesn't mean anything special in the donkey world.

This morning I moved some young jacks to the stall at the end of the barn. The vet is coming this afternoon to geld a couple of them. I always move them hours before the vet comes, so they  have time to settle down, and just have some quiet time. It is so much easier for the vet to sedate/anesthetize them if they have been having a dull day shut in a stall. If I move them right before she comes, well, then they are excited and the medicine sometimes just does not  make them sleepy.

This picture always makes me think of a nursery school. It was taken a few years ago, about this time of year. This is so typical of the young jennets, they always come up to me when I have some time to just hang out in the field. We were fixing an automatic waterer a few days ago, and a group of young donkeys was right there, inspecting the work as we did it.

Well, this is a new experiment for me. I have kept journals before, and now I am going to keep one about life here on our donkey farm. Today was a great day, first day that felt warm, the spring onions are sprouting in the grass, and two patches of crocus are in bloom. Tonight I am on foal watch, perhaps we will have a leap year donkey foal tonight.