Horseshoe Ranch Blog
6/24/2010 This is a bittersweet day. The last of our "rescue
donkeys" are on their way to their new home. It took a bit longer for them to
get friendly with people than the others; therefore, we kept them and worked
with them and didn't put them up for sale until we knew they would be perfect
gentlemen and trust and love people. Shortly after they were put up for sale on
our website, we begin to get inquiries from Dave Rosenow. He took his time,
asked questions, asked more questions, thought about this, discussed it with his
wife and daughter. He wanted to make sure this would be the right decision. Ron
and a neighbor are on their way to Dave's home in Villa Ridge, MO with "the
boys". Dave thinks he will name them "Ben" and "Jerry"! They will be gelded in
the fall. We will miss the boys........
May 18, 2010. I was right! Katrina had her foal Mothers' Day
at 10:45 p.m. All is well. And, I forgot to mention, we have all of our donkeys microchipped. Yeah!
05/09/2010 Happy Mothers’ Day to all mothers. It’s been a long time since I’ve written, so there’s lots to share. I’d like to invite all of you to the Donkey Day of Knowledge sponsored by the Central States Donkey Club. It will be held Saturday, May 22 at the Buffalo City Park, Buffalo, MO. Please email me for more info. Young jacks Hogan and Pepper were sold to Liz Adams in Fredericktown, MO. Her husband surprised her with another little jack for Christmas. She will have all of the boys gelded. One of our rescues, Patches, was sold to the Newton Family in Knox City, MO. He is a buddy to their new horse, Cinnamon. In early November, we were visited by Andy and Barb Arthurs. They fell in love with our donkeys and bought four of the rescues: Polka Dottie, Gray Mom and her baby boy, Gray Mom’s young jennet yearling. We hear from them often and all are doing great! Polka Dottie was not at all friendly; Barb has worked with her on a regular basis and now reports that Miss Dottie is the first to greet visitors and has become extremely friendly. Just goes to show what a little love and attention will do! We are delighted that these lucky donkeys ended up with Barb and Andy. Also in November, Hurricane went to live with Lori Lorenz in Belleview, MO. They are accumulating a nice little herd of jennies and used our jacks for breeding last year, but this year decided to buy their own. Hurricane will happily oblige! Bobbi was a surprise Valentine’s present to Lori Lorenz from her husband, Bruce. In February, we received a phone call from Eva Thurmond who needed a donkey friend for her newly acquired donkey (of course she had not been told he needed a buddy). Twister seemed to fit the bill and he now lives with Eva in Sullivan, MO. In December, Jan and Helmut Weber purchased Smugars and her jack foal, Stormy. They now make their home in Hermann, MO. Ronnie’s knee is doing very well since his arthroscopic surgery last June. In fact, we are planning an Alaskan Cruisetour (Holland America) in July of this year. This will be for our 50th wedding anniversary. Our new lake filled quickly as we were lucky to get a lot of rain. It is holding water well and we will stock it with fish in the fall. Ron now thinks he wants to buy cattle! So, that means he will cut/bale/store lots more hay than previously! H.R. Katrina is expecting any moment (I’ll be she foals today)! Probably Libby later this summer and then about ten in the fall! Life is certainly not boring.
8/30/09 We attended the Second Annual Ozarks Classic Breeders
Sale in Springfield , MO June 12-13. Tabatha and Delilah were good girls at the
sale and are settled in their new homes. It was so good visiting with old
friends and meeting new ones; that’s the best part of these sales for me. It was
a bit difficult for Ron, as he had arthroscopic knee surgery on June 10. Steve
and Cheryl Klund transported us and our donkeys. They are great friends. On June
30, little Quincy (whose mom rejected him) went to his new home in AZ. I am in
contact with his new owners on a regular basis to see how he’s doing. Hay season
has come and gone. Ron baled lots of round and square bales; sold some and kept
a lot for us. We had a lake put in on our new property. Ron spent a lot of time
fencing it, seeding, fertilizing, strawing, and putting in a couple of concrete
pads with a livestock watering tank and a faucet. Now we want a lot of rain!
H.R. Stormy was born to EA Smugars and Stoney Acres Salem, on June 22. And…..the
gray jennet we rescued September 2008, had a pretty little gray boy Aug. 16. We
are very grateful to have all healthy foals and moms this season. I have sent a
lot of information to Nadia (my webmistress) to be included on the website.
Still need to get pictures and measurements on the other “rescue” donkeys.
Always more to be done….
5/21/09 Lots of excitement since my last post: We now have 7 healthy babies, with just one more due this spring (EA Smugars). All babies are thriving. It’s so much fun to look out the window and see babies at play with the moms looking on. Our first time mom did a great job. Lavita Sue had her little black beauty, Savannah, without our help, and immediately began “mothering” her. She seemed like an old pro. Our good friends, Steve and Cheryl Klund, (Cedar Valley Farm, Festus, MO) came by and spent the day clipping our two donkeys, Tabatha and Delilah, in preparation for them being in the Second Annual Ozarks Classic Breeders Sale in Springfield, MO, June 12-13. By the way, I am frantically trying to get all the photos/info to Nadia (my webmistress) listing all the donkeys we have decided to sell. We have way too many, and it’s difficult to know which ones to sell. If you see donkeys you want to buy, please contact me asap, in case we can take them to Springfield June 12-13 to help with transportation. Remember, we need time for the Coggins/health papers.
04/21/2009 Our foals are arriving! This is the most exciting time for miniature donkey breeders…..excitement, anticipation, a bit of worry. Cutie Pie arrived 4/10 and Quincy arrived 4/14 – but mom rejected him. Read more about them under “New Foals”. The following brood jennies are expecting foals soon: Short ASSets Gidget, EA Smugars, H.R. Buttercup, Gardner’s Lavita Sue, Short ASSets Millicent (Millie) and Ma & Pa’s Libby. Lavita Sue is the only maiden jennet. We had bred Little Friends Enchilada last spring but it didn’t take. She’s currently in with our herdsire, H.R. Desi. This past summer we bought 107 acres adjacent to our 30 acres. The property has been long neglected and needs a lot of work. Ron has been busy clearing out brush, trimming trees, redoing fencing, etc. We took some hay off it last year and will be enriching the soil and making more of it available for hay. The property has two small ponds and both leaked. Ron now has found the source of the problem and both now hold water. We are waiting for a new pond (almost 3 acres) to be built. We’ve had a lot of rain, and the ground needs to dry out before they can build it. Too bad it isn’t built with all this rain! We will have two young jennets in the 2nd annual Ozarks Classic Breeders Sale June 12 (viewing) and June 13 (sale), in Springfield, MO. The jennets are: H.R. Tabatha and H.R. Delilah. Check them out. This is the first time we have had donkeys in a “sale” and we are looking forward to it. I went there last year and bought three donkeys! Here’s a link to the website:
02/12/2009 It is with sadness, we announce the death of EA Moonshine at the age of 26-1/2 years old. "Grandma" is in the background of many of our donkeys, so, in a way, she lives on. She was given to us several years ago and she greeted us each morning with a bray (sounded like she was singing) to ask for her grain. She will be missed.
9/28/08 We welcomed visitors, Chuck & Lorraine Chudomelka (C&L Registered Miniature Donkeys) from Springfield, MO. We had met them previously at a MMDBA (Missouri Miniature Donkey Breeders Assn.) meeting and were glad they came to check out our donkeys. We had a nice visit.
We picked up three donkeys that we had previous sold. The owners are moving to the city and asked if we wanted to buy them back or knew someone who might be interested in them. They are: H.R. Joe-Joe (gelded spot jack), H.R. Shadow, and H.R. Breeze (each jennet is 2 years old). Joe-Joe and Breeze will be on our "for sale" page. I will get new photos of them to add to the sale page soon. We hope they sell together as they are great friends. These are nice donkeys and have been well cared for.
We bought six miniature donkeys recently (we will measure later, but at least one is over-sized). There are three jennets and three jacks. Their owner is 90 years old and had not had been able to care for them in quite a while. A local farrier did what he could to their hooves and they have a way to go. We will give them shots, worm them, do what we can for the hooves, and then sell them. We are also working on getting them friendlier. They were on 200 acres!
9/21/08 We had a nice visit from Kim Zellers (KZ's Ass-Piration Acres) and Sandy Bainbridge (Bainbridge's Long Ears Acres. These ladies, along with their daughters, came from New Jersey. Kim had bought H.R. Hope from us last year. Sandy fell in love with H.R. Sierra this visit and, in a weak moment, we sold Sierra to her.
9/1/2008 It is with great sadness I report that Short ASSets True Asset aka Trudy, lost her first foal, a black jack on 8/28. The baby was breech and neither Ron nor the vet could deliver the baby in time. Trudy seems to be doing okay. Ron is giving her lots of shots and we are giving her lots of special love. This is our first, and hopefully last, breech birth.
"6/22/2008: I returned home from Springfield, Mo where I attended the Inaugural Ozarks Classic Breeders Sale. Three young jennets were purchased for our herd, bringing our number of miniature donkeys to 42! I can't believe we have so many donkeys. Ronnie and I will need to sit down and go over which ones to sell, so look for more donkeys listed under "for sale" in the next few weeks. We have added: Ass-Pirin Acres Jumpin Java, Ass-Pirin Acres Bundle of Love, and Gardner's Kaleena K. They are future brood jennies. Ronnie is busy doing hay. He does it all himself, so it's quite a job. We have recently purchased 110 acres adjacent to our 30 acres, so he will really be busy in the next couple of years getting the new acreage the way he wants it. I need to get busy taking photos of all the babies and getting them on my website, as well as getting mature photos for lots of our donkeys and submitting the new photos with their permanent registrations. We had donkey visitors from Nebraska a couple weekends ago. Dave & Shirley Ostblom (Ma & Pa Acres), our good friends spent a couple of days with us. Dave showed Ronnie how to "microchip", so that's another thing we will be doing soon. I hope you enjoy this new aspect of the website. I'll only update as things happen around here that I want to share."
Horseshoe Ranch Blog
To send an E-mail:
