The Donkey Shop

18/04/2025

Saddled up and ready for donkey rides.
Today in Rushworth, tomorrow at Moora.
So much to see and do here, including heavy horses, beautiful carts, vintage machinery, classic cars and so much more. ❤️🫏🫏

12/04/2025

Palm Sunday in Brunswick for the multi-church service 🫏❤️🌿🙂

04/04/2025

Amida and I will be doing donkey rides with Spice and Ruby at the Vintage Crank Up in Yarra Junction today.
Always a fabulous family day.
This morning is beautiful and fresh after the showers and the classic cars are backing into position 🙂
10am until 4pm today and tomorrow
There are different things on each day.
We are here both days
🙂❤️🫏🫏🌿

26/03/2025

Little Smokey was microchipped, vet checked and gelded yesterday. We always get the best of care at Yarra Ranges Animal Hospital.

We had a variety of animals in today! Smokey the mini donkey The Donkey Shop and Miss Orange the labradoodle Raresilver Labradoodles. We love working with our breeding clients and seeing their animals go on to have happy healthy lives! 💛

26/03/2025

The Donkey Shop /Iron Brook Donkey Farm, will soon be moving to a larger acreage so that we can grow the things we do.
If you have ever visited this beautiful farm, and wished you could stay forever, now is the time to register your interest.
I have been here for 15 years, and still absolutely love it. The exquisite view is ever changing and still takes my breath away, especially on foggy mornings and sunset evenings, but now it is time to evolve, and we just need more space than we have here.
The State Forest has been a fabulous neighbour and I have trained many donkeys on its trails.
Touch base if you think this property might be for you.
🌸🌿

01/03/2025

Spice and Ruby are at Mont De Lancey Draught Horse Festival doing donkey rides through the beautiful gardens today and tomorrow. There are lots of wonderful old things to look at and an array of markets. and wonderful Draught horses at work.
Please bring cash, as many stall holders don’t have eftpos. Eftpos is experiences small businesses 🙂

27/02/2025

Spice and Ruby will be doing donkey rides at Mont De Lancey this weekend.
It is a fabulous event with Draught Horses, blacksmiths and all sorts of wonderful historical things.
I took Spice for a walk around Warburton yesterday, in preparation for all of the events she has coming up. She particularly enjoyed checking herself out in the reflection of the Arts Centre windows 🙂❤️🫏

22/02/2025

Wonderful loose lead walks in the forest with Pumpkin. Dogs zooming in and out, and deer rustling and honking in the bushes…
She is doing really well.
She improves so much with a little routine and love. ❤️🌿🫏
She doesn’t like the pebbles in the gravel much, but we haven’t progressed to hoof boots yet.

20/02/2025

I recently bought a little cart from my friend Fiona. Last week I spent some time at their place, which is near Fish Creek, and learned as much as I could about harness driving.
Fiona is an excellent teacher, and I seem to have absorbed most of it… although there is still plenty more to learn and lots of experience to gain. We went out the first day, with me driving Daisy. the mule with Fiona and the second day, I drove Tambo the donkey, Fiona drove Daisy, and her friend had her gorgeous little shetland.
We also spent a day going through all of my harness gear and working out how to best fit it to each of my animals.
I have got the cart home now, and soon a few of my team will be working in harness.
I have a busy month coming up with lots of donkey rides, two film commercial shoots, Easter, Palm Sunday and ANZAC events, plus more… so at the moment my focus is on preparing them for that…. but then we will get back into the harness. My prediction is that Larry will be excellent, he is a very level headed donkey 🙂

10/02/2025

I haven’t read the article yet, but I did a phone interview awhile back and apparently I am on the front cover of Southern Farmer magazine this month with a fabulous photo from my friend and photographer, Michelle Knoll
🙂

06/02/2025

Little Smokey had a visit from his mama to be this week, and it was so lovely seeing them together. Margie will be taking him home when he is weaned after 6 months old, so a few months to go here yet.
Margie has been coming here and visiting him as he grows, and it is beautiful to see the connection they have already.
When I sell a donkey foal, I always encourage the owners to spend some time with their little one here, and it builds a bond that lasts a lifetime
❤️🙂

18/12/2024

Hello All,
There is an Optus internet outage in my region this week, so, if you need to contact me for rides or the shop, camping or Airbnb, please call my mobile, which is 0409664074
Also, a reminder, for those who haven’t seen it yet, the Yarra Ranges Donkey Festival is unfortunately cancelled for this year.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
❤️🙂🌿🫏

09/12/2024

It is with deep regret and sadness, and overwhelming disappointment, that I need to announce the cancellation of the Yarra Ranges Donkey Festival.
Some things have happened not the way they should have, and I am not prepared to compromise the event, by trying to patch it back together. The event that I organised on my own in 2015 was a great success, without any drama, and that is the type of event that I want to present.
The event is about the celebration of donkeys, and teaching people about them. That is our focus, and I don’t want to lose sight of that.
I was looking at trying to postpone to another date, but I think it will be better if I stop, reset, and look for a date in 2026.
If you are a stall holder, please reach out, as I do not have your contact details, neither of the phone numbers on the flyer are mine.
Please call me on 0409664074. I am aware that many of you have already paid, and I want to make sure that is sorted.
I am deeply sorry for all of the people this affects, and all of the people who have helped me so far. Your assistance is very much appreciated. I do hope that you will come together to create something amazing with me for 2026, which is better presented, with less complications.
Much love. Linda Jay

06/12/2024

Being the Christmas season, the donkeys have been very busy out and about, spreading Christmas Joy all over suburban Melbourne.
Ruby has been doing lots of Nativity shows… with one more to do tomorrow.
A teacher took these photos of us resting under the trees together, between shows on Thursday. 🙂❤️🫏🌿
Spice has also really stepped up to the plate with donkey rides. She did a wonderful job at Merry Monbulk yesterday. I am sooo proud of her, The funny thing is, she was so keen to work, that whenever Ruby was giving a ride, Spice would paw the ground and toss her head in impatience, because she thought she was missing out !! She was very keen to be the one doing the action… and it helps that she knows that she gets one slice of carrot per ride. 🙂
I think she was worried, at first, that Ruby was getting all the carrots 🥕 🤣
She eventually worked out, there was plenty to go around 🥕🥕🥕🥕❤️🫏🫏