Darby

Darby was born August 16th, 2012. She is a pink skinned spotted small standard donkey. She was the ‘baby’ of our herd. Darby first came to our home in December of 2012 when she was four months old. She was born and raised on a farm by the Gibson family. When I spotted her on Kijiji I knew I had found the perfect pal for Paco.
You can read the story about her arrival in this post – Darby Day. I will always remember how excited I was waiting for Gary to arrive through a snowstorm to bring her ‘home’.
She sure has grown over this year! She and Paco will be about the same height. I was so delighted this morning to find them grooming each other. They are good buddies. They follow each other everywhere and will often hang their heads over each other’s backs.
Darby has a beautiful face. Her nose is long and narrow. She is looking downright ‘coltish’ in her first summer. She loves attention and will come right over to the gate if she hears you coming. She is always up for neck scrunchies and back scratches. She loves to run and play and has a beautiful gait.
Her ears are amazingly long – and she makes good use of them to express herself. Another interesting feature of Darby’s face are her eyes. She has white in her eyes that our other two donkeys don’t. She can certainly fix you with her gaze. And when she is startled her white wide eyed look makes me think of a deer caught in the headlights! Darby’s favourite thing to do these days is eat – and eat – and then eat some more.

Darby stayed with us for seven wonderful years. She became queen of the flerd – bossing the jennies, the goats, the chickens and even me around. She and I carried on full conversations which included MANY situations in which she would literally cuss me out with her trademark ‘bite me’ move. She would nip her own flank to strongly voice her displeasure! She was my constant companion. 

Two years after Paco died I could sense a growing frustration in Darby. In my heart I knew she needed more space and larger companions than we could give her. She is so smart! And she really needs challenges. So I contacted the Gibsons and Darby returned to her original farm and their large herd of donkeys – one of which was her sister. We miss her dearly – but love to get updates and pictures which give us a view into her new life.