First Trim On My Own Donkey’s

Gentling and trimming my own donkey’s feet without excessive force, stress or drugs has always been a goal of mine, especially after I started to study holistic methods for handling donkey’s and mules.  Starting my course of study with Megan Hensley in the Holistic Hooves course really opened my eyes to the fact that donkey’ could be handled safely with patience and respect, versus other ways that are more forceful.  So I have been working with my own donkey’s in that vein.  Summer where I live is very hot.  No excuses, we choose to live here on purpose but it limits how much work we do with the donkeys because of daytime temperatures.  But in the last couple months, with the heat cooling…I’ve purposefully been out with the donks as much as possible with a careful eye toward not overwhelming them, while trying to allow them to understand that I’m going to be working with their legs and hooves more often.  I think of the work with the donkeys as a partnership…they don’t bite or kick me if I use the right techniques and work on my own consistency and calmness…learning as I go.  I also use every handling tidbit I can pick up to make the time with the donks safer and more productive.  Nothing beats experiental learning for me, so I watch and listen to what works for others as much as possible and incorporate into my daily interactions with the donks.  

Just from my hours of working on trimming with John and Karin at California Breakfast Burritos, I brought home a couple tricks that paid immediate dividends for safely handling and trimming my own donks.  First, I started to work toward getting the back legs to come up within getting kicked by standing closer to the donk with a hand on the back to let them know where I was….as I reached down and inside the leg vs trying to grab it from the outside.  This was an immediate change and really effective.  Just on my BLM donkey who was wild a year ago, I was able to get both hind legs up and back down several times safely without her being tied or restrained in any way, without any treats.  This doesn’t mean I could trim her, but I did get the legs up long enough for a look at the bottom of the hooves.  Yeah, a win.  

Just on Monday, after getting my other donk Micki, into a bridle and giving her a quick grooming and some fly goop around her eyes, I was able to bring in my bag of trimming tools and let her eat peanuts from her red treat pail….while I got a hoof up long enough to trim.  I was able to trim my own donkey for the first time alone (safely) without stressful restraints.  While the entire operation wasn’t perfect and I didn’t get the whole hoof done right, I was still able to cut a portion of the hoof wall, try to cut down the bars and attempted to use my rasp to finish the hoof, but she wasn’t having that.  But, in my mind this was a huge success…a WIN. 

Here’s previous stories I wrote about working with the donks: 

Trying to Gentle And Trim My Own Donkey’s Hooves- First Steps

Trimming Donkey Hooves With California Breakfast Burritos

Excessive Heat =’s Less Interaction