See the Zonkey? Utah farm boasts exotic animals
YOUNG WARD, Utah — Moses the camel loves meeting new horses.
They come to his farm, they see him, and then they freak out.
“Horses think that camels are boogie monsters,” said Brad Tolman, whose family owns Moses and a variety of other farm and exotic creatures. “A camel’s favorite day is when a new horse is introduced.”
Eventually, any newly acquired horse settles down, but Moses — who is about as gentle as camels come — enjoys it in the meantime.
Call it one of his endearing qualities.
Anyway, he has his other buddies. The Tolmans are proud owners of four draft horses, lots of cattle and a collection of horses, mules, donkeys and llamas. Then there are the pigs, the ducks, the chickens, the goats and the fallow deer — the last of which require a special permit along with Moses the camel and the resident zebra and zonkey.
It’s the zebra, zonkey and camel that have been garnering attention lately, though, with Cache Valley residents buzzing about the unusual animals.
The Tolmans, who have about 500 acres of property between Logan and Mendon, have owned the exotic animals for a few years — and Moses is known for his annual live nativity appearances.
Neighbors and friends are aware of the trio, usually kept in one of Tolman’s interior pastures off a dirt road.
“We typically keep them right here,” Tolman said, referencing an off-the-beaten-path area near the family’s barns and outbuildings. “And we still have a steady stream of cars.”
But about six weeks ago, when freezing temperatures followed flooding, the Tolmans struggled to get their cattle to cross newly formed ice to eat hay placed in a pasture along 600 South. To make sure the food didn’t go to waste, Tolman decided to move in the rest of the gang — including Moses, Zeb the zonkey and the zebra, who “doesn’t really have a name.”
“Next thing we know, we had a camel and a zebra out on the Mendon highway,” Tolman said, adding that the scene has at times created quite the bottleneck in traffic.
Brad and Michelle Tolman first moved with their seven kids from Layton to Cache Valley about 12 years ago after purchasing the farm. Brad still works in Layton, but says living in the valley is worth the drive.
The family primarily raises show pigs and keeps cattle, but an assortment of unique animals have slowly made their way to the farm.
About five or six years ago, the family put on a live nativity. Neighbors and friends gushed about it but lamented there wasn’t a camel. So Tolman started researching the possibility of renting one for a night.
Turns out, it’s hard to rent a camel.
But he found one for sale in Colorado and agreed to trade a horse for the baby camel. The dromedary is now broken in and weighs nearly 1,500 pounds.
Soon after, the family acquired two zonkeys and a zebra from the same Coloradoan owner. Tolman put one zonkey, whose father is a zebra and mother a donkey, up for sale online and had a taker — an “oddball like me” — almost immediately.
The family has also owned yaks, water buffalo and an ankole-watusi. But when money got tight, they had to make hard decisions.
“The economy tightened up, and the free-loading animals had to go,” Tolman said, adding they’re now all at an animal rescue facility in Utah County.
Zeb and the zebra stayed, along with Moses, who essentially pays for himself through his live nativity showings each December.
And there are plans for the zebra, which will be bred with a donkey this year and hopefully provide profitable offspring.
So is the rumor true — that zebras are mean and nasty? Sort of.
Tolman says when raised by humans from Day 1, zebras can be quite tame. His particular animal came to the family at about a year old, and while he doesn’t like to be touched — and definitely won’t put up with a halter and saddle — he’ll eat grain from a bucket held by someone and linger near a group of people.
Zeb, on the other hand, can be a bit more friendly. Larger than his half-brother zebra, Zeb is “flighty” but he’ll tolerate a pack nicely when Tolman goes into the mountains.
And Moses can be downright affectionate — for a camel, that is.
Among his buddies, he stands out like a sore thumb, towering above animals like Zeb and especially Jethro, a miniature donkey. But he gets along just fine and has taken a special liking to one particular llama.
Tolman said the llama was born about three years ago and soon after got lost in a snowstorm one day. The family searched all over for it, eventually finding the baby curled up and staying warm next to his animal-kingdom cousin Moses.
The collection of animals have provided the Tolman family joy, but they’ve also delighted friends. And for the family’s teenagers, they’ve given them a unique way to get a date.
“It’s the greatest pick-up line in the world,” Tolman said.
• Emilie H. Wheeler writes for The Herald Journal