Kill-pen donkeys

One of the horrors of this world is that so many horses and donkeys end up, by no fault of their own, in livestock pens, sometimes called kill-pens if the final destination of unwanted horses is to be shipped to Mexico or Canada for slaughter. Either owners just drop the poor creatures directly at the kill-pens or at auctions where "kill buyers" bid on them, just so they can make a few bucks on an unwanted horse or donkey. Many of these animals are sick, or old or injured. Others are just "surplus," mostly due to over-breeding by people too broke, macho or lazy to geld their stallions, or in the case of donkeys, "Jacks." The whole thing makes me very angry. It is a hellish and cruel fate for those poor animals that find themselves in these "kill-pens" or on crowded trailers being shipped to barbaric slaughter houses in Mexico. Earlier this year (2024,) I found myself thinking about adding one more donkey to my herd. That way, if I could only manage to take one donkey on a burro adventure, the other one would not be left alone. I did not want to just buy a donkey, preferring to somehow rescue one in some way, so I steeled myself to look at a kill-pen site on facebook. To cut a long winded story short, I ended up bidding (rescuers call it bailing) on 2 donkeys. A little, black, 2-year-old female (jenny) and a four-year-old, pinto Jack. For a fee, the kill-pen (in Texas) transported the 2 donks along I-40, where I intercepted them at Santa Rosa and brought them the rest of the way home. I named the jack Bodie, after one of my favorite Wild West ghost towns, and I named the wee jenny, Vida, which means "life" in Spanish. The opposite of the kill, in kill-pen, is life. They were both pretty scared, skinny and exhausted when they got here. They had 'far-away' looks and were pretty shut down. I had to put them in small pens to isolate them from the other donkeys and horses, for what turned out to be a 6 week quarentine.

The top photo is of Vida at the kill-pen in Texas. The bottom pic is of Bodie in the same place.

After a couple of weeks to decompress and get used to me and their new, peaceful surroundings, both Bodie and Vida began to feel better and became super friendly. They both love attention and cuddles and as the weeks went by, they gained weight and settled in. They are both love-bugs who are happy to wear a halter and get brushed. Bodie still needs to be gelded, and will be in a separate pen from the others until that is accomplished. But, he now has a big pen which is right next to the other donkeys with trees for shade. Vida is now in the very big pen with Lena and Larado, but may well be pregnant. From what I can glean from her backgroud, she arrived at the kill-pen with a large family group, 3 of whom were jacks. Even though she is little more than a baby herself, donkeys can get pregnant at a year old. It is wait and see at this point. If she hasn't had a baby in a year, I guess I will know. A donkey's gestation can be up to 14 months!!!! The top pic is me with Bodie. He is quite a big donkey, and is tall enough to ride. We'll see if I will persue that, depends how everything goes, especially the gelding! The bottom photo is of Vida in her new, big pen. She is easy to catch and halter and she is learning to be lead around. Maybe she will want to enter a burro race down the line! :D