They're all here; or, how I nearly lost my thumb to a donkey named Hercules

Last Wednesday, we traveled to the outskirts of Driftwood to fetch the rest of the free Karakuls. Each of the beasties had to be wrestled and carried/dragged into the trailer, as there was no fail-safe setup to allow them to simply be funneled into their transport. While I was waiting to be useful, I made friends (or so I thought) with Hercules the Guard Donkey. He seemed to appreciate scratches and pats upon his person, and he followed me around as I went to fetch rope, and then the crook from the car.

By the time we were halfway through the sheep extraction, Hercules was acting like my best buddy, and started lipping my hand. DumbCityGirl me thought he was being sweet and affectionate, when he was really just gearing up for eating me alive, starting with my left thumb. The first stage of chomping was not too bad--not painful, but definitely impossible to break free. My efforts to keep the panic away weren't enough, as Hercules quickly accelerated to stage two of chomping--pain and disfigurement, but no broken skin.

At this point my brain is grappling with a matter of farm etiquette: how to make the pain stop while not offending the donkey's owner. Would she be OK with me punching and kicking at Hercules, or is that verboten? DearHusband, unfortunately, could be of no help, as he had his hands full of sheep, and wasn't willing to lose what ground he'd managed to cover, even if it meant rescue and gratefulness later. Hercules eventually decided that he didn't want to be attached to a screaming, bouncing spaz of a woman, and he let go.

First, I watched my hand plump back up and lose the tooth indentations. Then, it was red and a little swollen at the site of
attack. The next morning, I expected it to be heavily bruised, but there was little indication of what I'd been through. My hand was definitely sore for a few days, but not so much that I couldn't perform what's needed around here.

So, the next three things we need to do with the sheep are:
--shear the 4 new arrivals
--see about buying a ram
--breed the females
--look into buying a guard llama

DearHusband has set up snares for whatever got the sheep we'd lost a few weeks ago. He's also gotten into the habit of taking Boudreaux for a walk around the perimeter at the end of the day in the hopes that the scent will deter unwanted intruders.