This came a surprise to us! We found out that we have to move! Our neighbors of four years have just let us know they hate the donkeys, and didn't want them in the neighborhood since day one! While we are very sad to leave our home here after building a barn ourselves, we don't want our neighbors to hate living next to donkeys. So we are looking for our next home!

Please send good real estate vibes to us as the Gallatin Valley is INSANE right now with it's real estate inventory and pricing.  Equine friendly property is surprisingly hard to come by in Montana.  Fingers crossed that we find a suitable home for our fuzzkids! Please forward any info on housing that may be available soon! Also let your horse friends know that our horse property will soon be listed for sale!

We are looking for the following at minimum:
-three acres minimum
-a shop 
-NO HOA or Covenants!

Wishlist would be to have a home on that same property, a barn that is already in place, and fencing. Extra bonus would be water of some sort - isn't that what we all want?

Would you live next to a donkey? Our survey on instagram came back with 100% yes! We know there are donkey friendly neighbors our there somewhere.

I have had a hard time keeping up on the blog, but also there has not been much going on.  Rocky continued to be hand walked daily, took his medicine, had his temps taken, stall cleaned etc.  He is such a good patient.  The only times that were not super fun is when it was blowing snow, you know the kind that hits you in the face and stings.  I also have not gotten too many good photos, days mostly consisted of walking in the AM, in the dark, going to work, and walking him in the PM, yep, you guessed it, in the dark....

I am happy to report that he is almost fully integrated again! We started out by spending a few hours turned out with Daisy, then the next day a few more and so on.  I kept a close eye on him in the beginning, even rushing out when Daisy started clacking at him, in fear he might mount her. After that I started stalling her and letting him have the run of the pasture, which if you look at the photo below, she hated. But we're up to full days turned out with Daisy, and nights in the stall. Mostly because we have had quite a few loose dogs in the last few months and I don't want anyone chasing him, especially with how slippery it is (ice). He's doing great!

Swelling is worse than yesterday, thankfully attitude wise he seems less depressed.  Walking around more etc.  Saw him eating a bit on camera, he also drank almost a gallon when I refreshed his water.

Rocky's swelling is pretty good now, the vet warned me that day 4/5 would be the worst.  It looks pretty bad, his entire sheath is swollen along with a pocket in front of it.  His incision looks good though and his PU site looks ok - not getting weird, just ok for what it is.

We picked Rocky up, he jumped right into the trailer.  I got my run down of all my meds I need to administer.  The roads were slightly better than going out.  Our road has a decent incline with a turn involved and I just didn't know if the truck and trailer were going to make it all the way.  My husband walked down and I hand walked Rocky up and he drove the truck and trailer up, no problem of course.  I just didn't want him bouncing around in the trailer too much, or worse loosing traction and ending up in the ditch, overprotective donkey mom?

​yea....

Daisy went from thrilled Rocky was home, to just mad....Probably because he's acting differently than before and she doesn't know what to think of it.  She busted out her old OCD behavior of licking things.  When I bought her, the prior owner kept her in a 12x12 pen for TWO YEARS! She developed some stress coping mechanisms, one is licking the fence a bunch.  So while its cute I see it potentially as a sign that she is feeling stressed.  

Sunday we met up with our vet and got to visit Rocky.  He was a little out of it, but VERY into going for a walk! We were allowed to take him for a short walk and see if he wanted to eat any grass that was around, which mostly was covered by snow.  His appetite has been depressed, and it had been a little before going into surgery as he adjusts to his PPID medication.

We took her on a walk to hopefully distract her and give her some exercise, but she wanted to stop often and scan for Rocky.  She did say hi to the neighbor's mini donkey.

While on our walk we recieved some text updates from the vets office, Rocky was doing well...than we finally got this!

Surgery is set for later in the day, he's all settled in, they'll get his IV going and prepare him.  Meanwhile I head to work and try not to overthink everything, I know he's in the best hands and we're going to be feeling alot better soon!

I received an update from the vet, they worked on Rocky for four hours and could not get the initial procedure to be successful.  Due to his donkey anatomy it just didn't work like it should (PU surgery).  They decided it was best to do an traditional abdominal surgery tomorrow, allowing Rocky and my wonderful vets to get some rest.

Rocky's surgery has finally been scheduled for December 17th, I am feeling confident that we have the best vet attending to him.  Because Rocky is older, the vet recommended doing bloodwork to ensure he didn't have cushings or another disease that would impede his healing progress.  We got the bloodwork back this last Friday, he does indeed have cushings.  He has been started on medication (let me tell you trying to figure out ways to get him to take a pill has been interesting), he will be on it for the rest of his life. Here is a link if you'd like to learn more about cushings.  Looking back I can see small signs that I did not pick up on prior, while Daisy does not have similiar symptoms, I will be having her blood panel done this month as well since she will be nineteen this year.  Thank you for keeping up with Rocky's progress!

If you enjoy podcasts, here are a few about PPID/Cushings

The Podcasting Equine Vets

Ask The Vet

Straight From the Horse Doctor's Mouth
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