CRIPPLE CREEK, Colo.—Fewer asses are wandering the streets of this mountain gambling town these days.
Eleven donkeys that freely roam the town and surrounding fields were rounded up in late August after a regular checkup raised concerns of a foot disease called founder, or laminitis, said Greg Brazill, one of about a dozen volunteers who watch out for the animals.
The disease can cut blood flow in the hoof, and in some cases, can kill an animal. Overweight animals or ones with rich diets are predisposed to the disease.
“The tourists give them whatever they have in their cars—potato chips and ham sandwiches,” said Brazill. “They’ll eat anything.”
That diet was compounded by foliage—and residents’ flower beds—that grew fecund this summer from ample rain.
The donkeys have been confined to the town’s fat farm to eat a healthy diet of hay.
Brazill said the donkeys will be released once frost kills the rich vegetation.
The herd is descended from donkeys brought into the area in the late 1940s.
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Information from: The Gazette,
