Sure the donkeys are eating away at the barn that gives them shelter, but they’re doing it in a kinda beautiful way. Almost looks like sculpture. The way the push back the chicken wire, meant to keep them from chewing the wood, and eat around it. All those soft curves and color changes in the wood on the right side. Compared to the rough chewed chunks on the left, eaten at almost regular intervals. And look at the way they’ve rounded the post, which helps create the door way. They’ve turned all those sharp edges into organic forms. What, I wonder, are they trying to express with this creation?
Can it really just be donkeys in the winter boredom? Snow covered pastures give grazing animals nothing to do all day. It’s not like they can hang in the pole barn and play cards, or a makeshift game of golf (you know use the broken branch to hit the rock in the hole). It’s not that they’re lacking in their diet, they get plenty of hay and treats and grain when it’s really cold. There’s always a mineral block and salt lick to snack on. But it seems like more than just boredom to me. It looks too intentional, too, well, beautiful to me. I think they’ve caught the Bedlam Farm Creative spirit. Maybe they’re getting ready for next June’s Open House. I mean I’m making a sculpture out of baling twine and an old chair, why not turn the barn into art as well as being a place to stay warm and dry.
Except, of course, if they keep at it, if it’s not about art and they aren’t trying to create, but can’t stop themselves, well, they’ll literally eat themselves out of house and home.
So art or not, out came Jon with the nasty smelling spray to keep the donkeys from eating the wood. I pulled some old apple tree branches, that I cut in the fall, out of the snow and put them in the pole barn next to the construction cone, hoping this combination will be intriguing in a new way to the donkeys. Perhaps they can chew the branches into one continuous unbroken wooden chain. That should keep them busy, wouldn’t ya think.
Well, at this point we can only see what happens. I only hope when we come home from out trip to Disney, the barn is still standing and the donkeys have taken up a new hobby.
I vote to let them in!
I’m with you Lisa.
I love that you pointed out the differences in the two chewed posts! I would not have noticed, only been resigned and irritated that the donkeys are indeed “eating themselves out of house and home”! But the way you describe it, I can see the sculpture effect also. The idea of the apple branches is a good one. Hope it works! Annie
Maria, if you live in the country you get used to animals chewing away at your buildings. But I wasn’t prepared for the little grey squirrel who has been eating the plastic tray on my small bird feeding that I have attached to the evergreen tree that we bring in every November and leave standing up in a base, then wired to the house because of wind, until April. I feed the birds from this birdfeeder, however, the squirrels were not long in finding it. When I went in to For the Birds, our birdseed store in town, remarking as to why I was buying a second back-up feeder, the owner wryly said to me: well, we do sell squirrel food here as well as bird seed. I wonder though that the squirrels might eat us out of house and home one day. The damage they’ve done to our driveshed was repaired last autumn and it was pretty extensive. It is wood; the plastic chewing has surprised me.
Sandy P in Canada
And to think how small a squirrel is and it can do so much damage and be such a pain too.