A.J., Albert, Alfie, Arthur, Atticus
The 5 Amigos
The 5 Amigos are a special group of deeply bonded burros ranging in age from 12 to 20. They are very wild. With the exception of A.J., who is all black, they look very much alike.
2022 was a hideaous year for burros and it’s just getting worse. To raise awareness to their plight, we launched @skydogdonkeys on Instagram with the rescue of the 5 Amigos.
The burros were violently rounded up from their Virginia Range by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in December 2021. Four months later, we found these federally-protected animals in a North Texas feedlot, in danger of shipping on the next load to slaughter in Mexico.
Like so many wild equines eleven years of age and older, the 5 Amigos were deemed unadoptable by the BLM. They were placed in sale authority, where people can buy them for as little as $25. Whoever purchased these beautiful beings, turned right around and sold them for their meat price.
In April of 2022, when we were saving the 5 Amigos, we also saved Archibald, Agnes, and Alice from the Burns corrals. They were from the same herd and rounded up at the same time, so we continued with the letter “A” and named them Albert, Alfie, A.J., Arthur, and Atticus.
The 5 Amigos were quarantined in Kansas, even though the kill pen told us they had already recovered from illness. Burros are particularly susceptible to the diseases that thrive in filthy BLM holding facilities and killpens. Extremely sensitive animals, they are also at high risk for Hyperlipaemia with mortality rates of up to 80%. An excess of lipids in the blood is triggered by the extreme stress they suffer in roundups and separation from family and companions.
The videos from their hauler, Carla Lays, showed bewildered animals, who were heartbreakingly cooperative with a total stranger. After everything they had been through, they responded to soft, gentle voices and kindness. Cautious, but curious, they stepped into new situations at every rest stop on the road. Janelle and Koal met Carla in Colorado. They loaded them one last time onto a trailer and drove the final stretch to Skydog.
When the 5 Amigos arrived, they had body scores of 2-3. Their hooves and teeth were in bad condition. The vet found broken incisors, strange growths, and sharp points on their teeth made it difficult to eat hay, so we put him on nutritious, soft, warm mashes. We were still seeing snotty noses and hearing coughs, so they were quarantined on a pasture away from the other herds. Janelle attended to their feet, vaccinations, and dewormer and the vet came to see them. These wild burros were so good in the chute!
When their rehabilitation was complete, we released them onto 1200 acres that they share with Blue Zeus & Family, where they can be wild as the wind. They are welcoming to other donkeys. We have never seen them turn a newcomer away. In April of 2024, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Flopsy, Fufu, Bibi, Bluebell and Bitsy were released onto that vast expanse. When we went to see how they were getting along, we found Peppermint Patty, an older donkey, had joined the 5 Amigos. She chose to take a walk on the wild side, so now we have 6 Amigos, wild, free, and protected for the rest of their lives.
They don’t care for people and keep their distance, so it’s really a challenge to tell them apart, Three of the five can look identical, especially after a good dust or mud bath. Arthur was brought in for some extra care and went from mild to wild very quickly. Waldo was in the same pen to show him a totally different way of relating to humans.
In 2019, the lethal Path Forward for Management of the BLM’s Wild Horses & Burros sold mustangs and burros out to the livestock industry. That three “animal organizations” participated in this betrayal is impossible to fathom. The official policy of successive administrations, it has given ranchers their program of aggressive roundups. It is turning public lands designated by law for wild mustangs and burros into the province of commercial cattle and sheep.
The chances of falling into the slaughter pipeline is high for burros and donkeys due to demand for ejiao. This is a gel made from boiling their hides, primarily for beauty products and traditional medicine. The demand for it in China is ravenous - but the US is the third largest importer of ejiao. Domestic farms in China cannot supply enough animals, so traders take donkeys any place they can get them. This puts the BLM’s unjustified wild burro roundups in an even more sinister light. It places American donkeys and burros at even greater risk of slaughter.
All 5 Amigos currently have sponsors
By committing annually to a $100/month sponsorship of a mustang or burro, you help us enormously by supporting our existing rescues so we can continue saving more. To learn more about becoming a sponsor and see which animals need them:
American Mustangs and Burros Need Your Help
In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon, or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and two Senators to urge them to support these bills. You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io
Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2025 (H.R.1661 in the House and S.775 in the Senate). This bill would amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, commonly known as the “Farm Bill”. There are several important provisions for animals in that omnibus federal law, including the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act. It is currently illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. The SAFE Act would extend the ban to equines and shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.
The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 4356) The bill would eliminate the use of helicopters in rounding up wild horses and burros, and require a study into alternative methods for humanely gathering the animals.
See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at US canned hunt ranches and stop production of Premarin & other PMU drugs.
A bill from the previous 118th Congress that we hope will be introduced again this session:
Ejiao Act of 2023 (H.R. 6021). To ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.