Keeping water troughs open in Montana is a very difficult task. If you don't have electricity nearby you're left with little options. Most people just use an ax to cut a snoot size hole for drinking. I did not have luck with that, the entire trough froze.

Being that I have a plastic trough some options are not great, such as the propane heater. My tank is far too small for that as well. While we have electricity some what close to the shelters the trough heater I have is too small to keep it open. A larger more powerful heater is an option but we have other devices on the circuit so that was a limitation. Most tank heaters are 1500w, nothing is really available between 300w to 800w.

After a bit of research, ok it wasn't a bit, it was late nights of frantically trying to come up with a solution so I didn't have to hand bucket water twice a day like I did last year. (Very much missing our BarBar-A auto waterer at our old property). I have heard of bubblers, but some of the examples I saw online didn't seem like it would work. Until I found user Around the Country on youtube using a commercial bubbler. At only 20w it was worth a shot.

I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived pretty quickly for Montana. We set it up with our small 250w trough heater and hoped for the best. We're about a month in and so far it's doing the thing! We have gotten to -10° and the water stayed open! This is a huge burden off of me as we don't get home until dark (aka cold) and hauling water by hand is pretty much my least favorite thing to do. If you're looking to lighten that electrical bill for your equines, give this a try.
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For those who are unaware, keeping water available to your equines at all time is even more important in winter.  They tend to drink less which increases the chances of colic.

The colics most associated with the cold weather months are impaction-related. When ingested feed stops moving through the horse's gut efficiently, the material can accumulate and form a blockage. Feed and gas then back up behind the blockage, causing distention of the intestine and associated pain. - Equus Magazine

Other ways we help to combat the possibility of colic is providing the donkeys with a mash made from timothy pellets, flaxseed meal, vitamins/Minerals, replenimash, and some salt.  Soaked in hot water the pellets become light and fluffy.  The donkeys love it and the salt helps encourage them to drink.

We have finally started on Donk Hause2 (aka all I want for Christmas is a house for my ass).
We visited a local shed dealer and looked at their run in sheds.  After seeing some pricing we made some notes and decided to build them ourselves. We are hoping to build two of these, and a third as a tack & feed room (which is currently housed in our basement, which is not ideal).

This shelter is 10'x12', 8' tall on the back wall and 12' tall on the front wall.  The door opening will be 8' as well.

We used T & G for the lower 4', to double as a kick wall.

Most of our building was on Christmas day and we had some good weather!

Almost ready to the metal sides and roof.

A nice shot of the Bridger mountain range with some Alpenglow.

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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These boots are available for sale currently.

I've decided to start naming my boot sizes after some of the donkeys that I have made custom boots for in the past, these are the 'Paulianne'.  Paulianne was a grey overweight donkey resucued by Hithger, in Artois, Ca and later re-homed.  Her new home had me make her fly boots.

Each pair of fly boots are handmade, in Montana, by me.  Inevitably there will be variations in stitching and may not look perfect. And honestly, I'm a little out of practice, I used to produce boots a few years ago.  These boots show just that, some of the stitiching spacing is off (thanks to my binding foot being out of adjustment), none of which affect the function of the boots.

Why did I choose these colors?
I started thinking about how flies see color.  They obviously love my Daisy more than Rocky, but why? It's because of her color.  I researched this more and found that yellow is the least attractive to flies..."A key to making the device effective was the discovery that flies are three times more attracted to the color blue than to yellow and that yellow actually seemed to repel flies." Why wouldn't I make them yellow?  I am hoping to make the binding yellow as well.

These are sized medium, they should fit most large standard donkeys.  They are ten inches tall and fabric to fabric are 10" in circumference, but can be easily fastened down to 7", absolute minimum circumference is 4.5".  Please measure your animal before ordering.

Purchase them with confidence through Etsy, HERE.

Cleaned out the dressing room of the trailer, it was pretty disorganized after our last use.  I utilized the Seasuckers to wrangle some of the gear! They're now securing the portable fence, table, chairs and mat in one corner (yes I threw some titan straps in there!) and I made a blanket bar with two on the wall!  Now the rain sheets finally have a home!  I love these things, yes I want to get more!  Such a fast, strong, yet non permanent way to organize such an area.  Oh, how awesome would a Seasucker - Titan Strap collaboration be!?!

The donkeys have been enjoying some time off while I get caught up on life. One thing that happened that isn't so fun, is our truck blew its motor. We're super bummed, we only had it for a year! We expected it to last much longer. So its a little different with having one vehicle at the moment. I had to finish up repairing pack saddles and panniers, as the donkeys will be in a parade this coming weekend! I'm excited as this will be their first parade!

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I had to weedeat in the donkey pasture....if a poo touches a grass 5" away that grass is no longer edible lol. I dont blame them, but it looks super funny having these giant patches of thick tall green grass everywhere.

Hoping to get a social walk or a hike in this weekend. Donkeys are looking a little pudgy, and in all fairness I did try a new feeding tactic with them that didn't work out at all. They loved it though!