Admittedly I had kind of a disappointing day with my older donkey. I brought him out to work with him, and usually part of the routine is brushing him down and picking out all 4 feet. Up until now he’s been tolerant of me picking up his feet and picking them out, usually it takes a couple of goes to get the backs all the way picked out and if he’s antsy I may go back to picking them up with a rope a couple of times first. Today I picked out his front feet fine and the backs he immediately was kicking out, completely irritated. When I switched to the rope he kept lifting his hoof annoyed and even then he kicked out a few times. Not towards me but straight back, not that it matters.
He is an older gent, late teens most likely, and I do wonder if maybe there’s some arthritis and he’s more creaky because of the cold? He’s always seemed a little slow to give me his backs, we kind of have to warm up to it. Should I chalk it up to just one grumpy day? He’s had his front feet completely trimmed and I was working on it so we could start doing his backs but we might be farther out than I thought.