FEARRINGTON VILLAGE -- Sisters Carly and Brooke Newell didn't know which type of bread Jasper would like best, so they brought both white and wheat.

Carly, 12, and Brooke, 8, offered him a slice of white. Jasper, a skinny fellow with stick-like legs, sniffed it.

He took it in his mouth, but didn't chew. Then he spat it out.

He preferred that the girls pet him rather than feed him. His mama watched suspiciously while they ran their hands over her colt's soft, brown coat. His tail swished with delight.

"He's really cute," said Carly, who had walked over to see the donkey with her sister and grandpa, Bill Newell. "His legs are really skinny."

Jasper is one of the newest additions to the Fearrington Village menagerie. The donkey was born at Fearrington about three weeks ago to his mama Mary Alice and his daddy, Dunny.

And if you want to talk pregnant stories, Mary Alice has the topper. She carried him for 12 months, and Jasper came into the world weighing 45 pounds.

Since then, Jasper, with big chocolate-brown eyes and ears too big for his head, has doubled his weight. He prefers his mama's milk to white bread.

Bob Strowd, Fearrington's farm manager, said the donkeys came to Fearrington from Savannah, Ga. He keeps them in the pens with the famous Belted Galloway cows because donkeys protect cattle, he said. They don't like dogs or coyotes, which can harm the herd.

"They're very aggressive," Strowd said. "They will bite, kick and stomp" anything that comes onto their field.

That's why Fearrington's resident border collie, Bella, is not allowed beyond the fences.

Strowd even had to take out some new goats because Mary Alice's other colt, Pedro, tried to stomp them. Pedro, Strowd said, took his job a little too seriously. In addition to trying to off the goats, he chased the cattle, which he was supposed to watch over. Strowd had to find Pedro a new home.

Strowd said Jasper will stay at Fearrington as long as he doesn't follow in his brother's hoofsteps.

As the morning sun grew hotter Friday, the cows huddled under shower heads that sprayed cold water.

But Jasper and his mother worship the sun. They lay in it for hours, Strowd said.

Sometimes, he gets concerned calls from Fearrington residents.

The donkeys are sick, they say.

Nah, Strowd says. They're just waiting for someone to put sun tan lotion on them.