I had known two donkeys in England, one when I was in my teens, bought for my younger sister, the other some years later bought for my own children. Both were CHARACTERS. I had also been brought up with horses and had my own pony since I was 10. Jenny and Henry should have taught me that donkeys were a little more than long-eared ponies!
Even before we left England my husband and I talked about breeding donkeys - 'one day'. Not only was our own donkey, Henry, such a source of delight but a day spent at an English donkey show watching these versatile little equines doing everything (and more) ponies did, including show-jumping, and we were totally sold.
Yes, we decided, as soon as we had another farm we would buy donkeys and start a stud. This resolve was considerably strengthened by 2 year old Ruth's persistent "Where's my Henry donkey? I WANT my Henry donkey!"
Glibly I promised her a donkey. Only to find there were NO donkeys in Northern Tasmania (or anywhere else in the island state) where we had finally landed and bought a farm.
Constant inquiries of everyone I met connected in any way with equines, advertisements in the three papers that covered the state revealed two donkeys near Hobart and two at Forth near Devonport. All were to my mind (used to English donkeys) ENORMOUS. Nan Chauncy, the famous children's author, and her husband owned the two near Hobart, at Bagdad. The two at Forth were in a private zoo. Imagine my excitement when I was told that the Hobart ones had produced a foal that had been sold and the new owner was prepared to sell it to me. All hopes were dashed when hard on the heels of this information came the news that the owner had left the foal (only 5 months old) tethered and come home to find it strangled in the tether chain.
The two at Forth were definitely not for sale. Anyway they were so big and ugly I wasn't enthused by them. The Bagdad ones were probably even bigger and possibly more ugly but I hadn't seen them!
Not long after I finally got my first wild donkeys the Forth jenny foaled, she was still in the same paddock as the jack who she killed when he went to investigate the foal. Bearing this in mind I NEVER left a foaling jenny and a jack together. I have since heard of foals being killed but never again the jack.
So here I was in 1969 with a farm which I thought ideally suited to breeding donkeys, a small daughter persistently requesting her 'Henry donkey', two very nice ponies but no donkeys, and it seemed no possibility of getting any. But I was tenacious.
First I tried the stock agents, no luck, donkeys they considered vermin not stock! Then browsing through a dog magazine of all places I saw an advertisement for a firm that claimed to find and transport ANY sort of pet anywhere in Australia.
I wrote and asked if there were any chance they would consider donkeys pets. And if so could they get me one? They would and they could, they told me. However even in Mainland Australia it was apparently not quite as easy as all that. When they contacted me again it was to say the only donkeys they could find were wild ones shipped into Sydney from The Northern Territory. It would, they said, be hardly practical or economical to purchase one of these and ship it to Tasmania, would I consider 6? Of course I would, a donkey stud in one hit! So eventually in torrential rain 6 travel weary donkeys arrived in Tasmania to form the basis of The Keysoe Stud.
One of the first big mistakes I made with my 6 wild donkeys was in estimating their ages. They were all much younger than I originally thought. Young donkeys never look quite as gangly and young as young horses and also I was used to the smaller English donkeys.
The next big step was to transform 6 wild donkeys into 6 tame donkeys. With no experience to guide me I followed my gut feeling here and, even with the wisdom of hindsight and a lot more donkey know-how under my belt, I still feel I didn't do too badly!
We selected the two quietest and the two smallest, also I suspect the two youngest, and kept them in a yard. All I did at first was lean on the railings, look at them and talk to them. Curiosity got the better of them, soon they were looking back, even edging close. Then I began to offer bread. After a week or so the strained wild look had gone from their eyes and they were eagerly looking for their titbits. Then I moved into the yard and began stroking, brushing and getting headstalls on.
In what seemed an amazingly short time they were quiet and friendly, the children could groom them and even sit on their backs. I had learned one big lesson that stood me in good stead in the years to come; you have to do these things at the donkey's pace.
I found that once one donkey was tame it was relatively easy to tame the others because they would bring the wilder ones up with them and they, seeing their friends were unafraid of people realised we weren't so bad after all.
We had considerable difficulty with one of the older, and prettier of the jennies. Katey who, though not particularly difficult to tame, was totally resistant to learning to lead. She simply stood rooted to the spot then lurched forward at high speed, it was possible to run with her for a short time but not to either stay with her or hang on indefinitely. It was some time before I hit on the solution, a hackamore rope halter with chain, sold in those days for cattle, a couple of days in this and Katey was leading perfectly and soon became a very good riding donkey.
I was extremely lucky in the temperament of my first adult jack, Pete. He was so kind and long-suffering that soon my children were riding him and we were taking him to Church and school fetes to give rides, sometimes taking Jane along too! I had very few jacks in later years that I would dare to do this with. However I was unlucky in another way with him, none of the jennies got in foal. I think we overestimated their ages and underestimated the trauma of their drastic change in lifestyle from running wild in The Northern Territory to confinement on the north coast of Tasmania, not only was the climate drastically different, we even had snow not too long after they arrived, but the food as well.
I never got a foal from Pete, this was explained when I eventually sold him (by this time the other jack, Jason, was mature) and his new owner had him gelded. He had a growth on the testicles and the vet who did the operation said he would almost certainly be sterile. Soon the jennies were in foal to Jason, again we were doomed to disappointment, at about ten month term one after the other the jennies lost their foals. Imagine the excitement when at last we had a live foal.
I have since learned that this ten-month period can be a dicey time; I have heard of foals being born dead at this stage when the mother has been subjected to a long float ride or similar trauma. But I do not know why our foals were lost.
I was not prepared for the enormous interest our donkeys would generate in the media. One journalist told me that their arrival in Tasmania was the biggest animal story of the year.
They were filmed and photographed, and newspaper, radio and T.V. journalists interviewed me, sounding, I think, a lot more knowledgeable about donkeys than I really was! My confidence was boosted by the fact that if I didn't really know much about them most people in Tasmania knew a lot less! This was born out by the comments made by the constant stream of what my children called 'donkey gorpers' who beat a path to our paddocks.
The two most common remarks were; "But I thought they had cloven hoofs!" and the question, "Can they canter?" We were constantly being asked to take them places and groups of school children were brought along to see them. I was asked to speak about donkeys not only to such likely groups as the R.S.P.C.A. but the Catholic Women's League as well.
Soon I had a waiting list of people wanting donkeys; as we weren't actually producing foals at a great rate I looked into other possibilities and enlisted the help of a horse dealer who did periodic trips to Victoria on buying expeditions and he was able to find me donkeys from time to time. Quite often these jennies were in foal (the fact that none of mine were on arrival is another indication that they were a lot younger than I first thought) so gradually numbers increased. With each donkey, in fact with each day spent with donkeys, my understanding and affection for these delightful creatures grew and donkeys became more and more an integral part of the Tasmanian scene, even getting classes in Shows. Wynyard Show I think probably being the first one in Australia to include donkeys.
Looking back I am amazed at the tolerance, kindness and adaptability of these first donkeys and quite appalled at my own ignorance and how much I expected of them. I was extremely lucky in these foundation animals as Jason proved to be an exceptionally fine little jack whose descendants, many of whom bear a striking resemblance to him, are still around today, a splendid line of smallish quality donkeys with spunky temperaments that make excellent harness animals or children's riding donkeys.
Among the jennies was Sally, the largest of the lot, 12.2 hands when mature. She became my own special riding donkey. A bonus I had not counted on when I first started out with donkeys, one large enough to carry me. I had never seen a donkey either so tall or so elegant as Sally in England.
Sally was with me until her death and her descendants, a line of splendid larger donkeys, capable of doing a good day's work in harness or carrying a man all day on the trail are also with us today.
Both Sally and Jason were outstanding and would hold their own in any company today, I am grateful to the keen eye of the person who selected them for me from a large wild mob all those years ago. I can take no credit for their selection. Only for realising their worth as time went by.
One day I got a phone call from Victoria, it was Jean Coffey, one of the pioneer donkey breeders here. "Would I?" She asked, "Be prepared to come over to help start a donkey society in Australia?" The rest of course is history.
