When Belle arrived at TIER she was pregnant and had been through a tough time. She had recently lost her THIRD baby (2 due to hit and run and 1 just disappeared). She was lying down quite often and having difficulty keeping up with the Oatman herd. She was depressed and unhappy. On top of the loss, she was rounded up by the BLM, put in a holding pen and then loaded in a trailer to come to TIER. She was brought to TIER to be with her full sister Jackie.

Her feet were in great shape from traveling with the Oatman herd so there was no immediate need to trim her hooves. Once she had been here for awhile our farrier attempted to trim her feet, but it did not go well. We did not want to stress her out too much while she was pregnant and decided to wait until after her baby was born for her to have a manicure.

Belle was not at all pleased with having her feet done! Our farrier, Val Dean, was able to get her front feet done before she had an all out meltdown. It is important to make her first experience with farrier work a good one with no harm to her or our farrier. Donkeys have great minds and remember EVERYTHING.

When it got to the point that she was pawing the ground, swishing her tail in anger and starting to rear, Val Dean called it day. He managed to get her front feet done and will tackle the back hooves on another day.

On the morning of 11/29/2016 I walked out to find that Belle had a new family member. Sometime in the night or early morning hours our sweet Belle gave birth to a lovely little girl donkey we have named Lacey! Future pictures of Belle's little one can be found on her own page at: Lacey-Belle's Baby

Welcome to the world LACEY! Belle is quite pleased with herself...as she should be. Baby Lacey is sweet, but unsure of people for now of course. She is mostly gray, but has distinctive white markings on her head and neck area.

Lacey was understandably shy at first.

However, she soon warmed up to humans. GOOD JOB BELLE & WELCOME TO THE WORLD LACEY!

9-10-2016

9-13-2016

Our Birth Plan: We want the baby to come out. That's the plan

That awkward phase in pregnancy when people can't tell if you are pregnant or just a nutritional overachiever.

Thanks to Stephanie M. & Belinda H., Burro wrangling to move Belle to her foaling stall went very well.  Woo Hoo!  We parked trucks & UTVs on either side of the gate to make a chute.  Stephanie haltered Belle and "led" her (HA! HA! HA!) while Gail applied pressure from behind by flicking the lead rope at her rear end. 

She wasn't too pleased about the situation until she found the feed trough!  She is in a 48' x 24' foot pen with boards on all sides.  The boards are to protect the new baby from getting caught in the welded wire once it starts skittering around.

Belle isn't due to present her little one until sometime in August.  We wanted her to adjust to her new living area for a bit before she foals.  Moving her to her own pen allows us to provide her with proper feed for the upcoming event.  It was becoming increasingly difficult to give Belle her specialized Mommy Feed because Jackie & Paco felt they needed the calories too!  If we had left her with Jackie & Paco and fed her what she needs nutritionally for a baby, the other two donks would get fat, fat, fat. 

The biggest protest about the change in living arrangements came from Jackie.  This doesn't surprise me at all as she has something to say about everything!

Phone call from neighbor:  "Hi Gail, this is your neighbor XXX.  I'm driving by right now and see that one of your mules/donkeys is dead.  It is lying down and all swelled up.  There is another mule/donkey standing over it, probably grieving.  The dead one is ...what is it called when a dead body decomposes and swells up?  I'm so sorry.  Just thought I'd let you know...wait...it is getting up!  It's alive!  Sorry.  I'm just a useless neighbor who calls about dead animals that aren't dead."

At first I was terribly worried about this message.  I had just driven past the horse area and thought I had missed something!  I always scan the corrals to see if anyone is down, etc. and didn't notice a thing out of sorts.  As the message went on I started laughing so hard that I had to replay the message to hear it all.

I am so fortunate to have attentive & caring neighbors!  They may not all be horse or donkey savvy, but we all try to look out for each other.  I called him back and said..."So, it seems I have a decomposing Donkey?"  He was embarrassed and I was grateful. I explained to him that the donkey in question is Belle, that she is pregnant and that she was lying down to get a load off her feet in the heat.  I thanked him for his concern and told him not to hesitate to call if he felt anything was amiss.  LOVE my neighbors!!!

Here's a couple pictures of the "Decomposing Donkey" (Belle) taken the day before we got the phone call.  She is most likely due to foal in August. 

The "wideness" continues to get wider

Normally I would say that Belle is being overfed and needs to lose a little weight because of that fat tummy. Jackie & Paco inform me that is a Donkey Baby Bump!

A Big THANK YOU to DJ for creating Belle's nameplate/stall sign!! Thanks to Diana & Carol for posing for pics AND Thanks to Belle for............being Belle!

 Friends, my very own NamePlate and your sister in the background.  Good stuff.

Cookies make for a good day too! 

BUT...there should be an endless supply of cookies!

Thanks to Marlene Dodge for transporting Belle, understanding the urgency of getting her to a safe place and reuniting her with her younger sister Jackie. She was picked up in the early morning on Wednesday, December 17, 2015 and arrived in the dark of night (no lights in that area of the facility) at 10:30 PM.

Gail was parked in her truck by the corral with her headlights on waiting for her arrival. Since it was so dark and we were not sure of what type of reception Belle would receive from her sister, Jackie had been moved to a pen next to the corral. Jackie & Belle were able to reacquaint themselves with each other without any shenanigans or accidents happening in the blackness.

Belle stepped off the trailer and calmly walked into the corral. Paco was excited to see a new long ears (he was in a pen next to Jackie and adjacent to the corral), but Jackie didn't seem to notice as she was chomping on hay. Jackie had a mouthful of hay and her head suddenly jerked to the side of the pen where Belle was and she just stared. "Is it really you? Are you really here? It's about time!" She seemed to say. No braying or running around. They sniffed noses and just stood by each other. The braying started (by Belle) when I brought her a flake of hay. Once that had been delivered everyone went about their business of eating and we called it a night.

All was calm the next morning with Belle standing near Jackie while Paco peaked through the rails. I'm sure the girls had a lot to discuss during the night.Jackie was moved into the corral with Belle the next morning. We held our breath waiting for a Donkey Rodeo filled with running around, braying and the inevitable dominance games of kicking/biting/pushing to decide who was boss. Didn't happen.Jackie indicated that there need be no discussion about who is the boss because that is most certainly who she is!Jackie simply put her ears back a bit, made a snarky face at Belle to let her know who was in charge and all was well.

Belle wandered off to explore the Redmond Salt rocks while Jackie (of course) continued eating.

We did notice that Belle has propellar ears...just like our dear Annabelle!

(Annabelle)

Warning: When treats are given to Donks, there is a high chance of that Donkey turning into a Bumblebee with striking leg markings! "Propeller Ears" allow the antennae to pick up on vibrations from treat buckets, thus making supervision of treat allocation (to Annabelle) much easier. I wonder if they work like that for Belle?

Belle has had 12 babies. She has lost her last 3 little ones. Two were lost due to being hit by cars and her yearling little girl Roxy went missing.

(Belle & SnowBaby 10/2015)

(SnowBaby & Belle)

SnowBaby was hit and killed 11/11/2015. 

Freedom was hit and killed by a speeder in 2012.  Her yearling daughter Roxy went missing in 2015.

((Belle, her mother Moma Jesse and her sister Jackie)