Donkeys!

Daisy, Cherry & Benito

Now, I likely never said:  "I want to be up to my elbow in manure".  But I must admit that we are getting Donkeys due to the kindness & compassion of Meg, her sister in law Penny, and one of the first thing I thought was "Yay, we will have manure!"  

As the reality of the land sets in one of the challenges we face is caring for the soil and wondering how we could replenish our 12 acres of fields without introducing chemical fertilizers. 

Naturally, when the opportunity to take in the three donkeys, we considered all the benefits we could gain by sharing our lives with them.

Donkeys are very good predator alarms and will protect what they care for.  This is a very important thing when you have vulnerable livestock.   We look forward to seeing how the Donkey's relate to our livestock as we develop that part of our farming efforts.  We plan on goats and chickens in the foreseeable future.   Husband would like some cows, sheep.   We both agree on a couple of pigs in the future, they are great help on the farm, not to mention tasty.

They are low cost and high output... vegetarian fertilizer makers.   Of course they are smart and a bit independent too... so we'll see how that goes!

Our three new friends will be joining us in June and we look forward to spending time getting to know them and what would make their lives rich.