Steven Sukkau
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Winnipeg Sun
Janet Thordarson didn’t grow up around animals. Neither did her husband, Jon. In fact, the entire concept of building a life around a herd of emotionally sensitive rescue donkeys might once have sounded like the punchline to a bad joke.
And yet here they are.
Seventeen minutes west of Gimli, Manitoba, on 160 acres, the Thordarsons run Boomer’s Funny Farm — a not-for-profit petting zoo and sanctuary that straddles the line between hobby and calling. Some days, more than a hundred visitors show up to wander the grounds, pet the goats, collect eggs, and have quiet, wordless conversations with donkeys.
Boomer is the original. A long-eared, steady-eyed creature who was meant to guard the chickens from foxes, but instead stole everyone’s heart. He didn’t just become a fixture — he became a philosophy.
“Everyone leaves here with a whole new appreciation for donkeys,” Janet says.
They opened the farm in 2021, in their hometown of Gimli. The world was locked down. People needed space. Sunlight. Something real. And the Thordarsons had a few animals, some grass, and a willingness to invite their community down to their slice of heaven.
“We let people come by and say hi to the animals,” she recalls. “And we started thinking: What would it take to offer this to more people?”
It didn’t take long before a few chickens turned into miniature horses, and the miniature horses turned into Boomer — and then Boomer turned into an expanding family of rescues: more donkeys, plus emus, llamas, goats — and every animal came with a story, and sometimes lengthy health records.
Some of the donkeys arrive from auctions where they were no longer “useful.” Others are surrendered by owners who are moving away or aging out of the work-intensive farm life.
“Donkeys form bonds,” Janet explains. “Strong ones. If you separate them, they grieve. Some will just stop eating — essentially die from a broken heart.”
Sometimes they get calls about old barrel racers who’ve been put out to pasture. Other times, it’s a desperate message from someone trying to do right by animals they can no longer care for. Boomer’s Funny Farm has become the answer to a quiet question that people don’t know how to ask: Is there somewhere better for them to go?
And now, after taking last year off to relocate to a larger site, the Thordarsons have reopened with more space, more animals, and more plans. Janet dreams of adding winter events, therapy sessions, and campsites where visitors can wake up to the sound of hooves outside their tent.
“I want people to be able to camp with the animals,” she says. “I want them to wake up and see the donkeys walking past.”
Janet still works part time as a psychiatric nurse. She knows how hard it is for some people to connect. She’s seen what it does when they finally do.
“Animals just… get through,” she says. “There’s research on this. Animals can be very therapeutic.”
There are easier ways to live. Running a sanctuary is seven days a week in the summer — often without pay, always with worry. Hay isn’t cheap. Vet bills don’t care about your budget. But then the visitors arrive. A child squeals with delight. Someone hesitates at first and then reaches out, fingers brushing the bristled head of a donkey who hasn’t flinched all day.
And Janet remembers why they started.
“We didn’t want it to be people standing behind a fence,” she says. “We wanted it to feel like you were part of something.”
And if you ask her what that something is, she might smile and shrug. But the answer is walking around on four legs with long ears, chewing hay slowly and blinking like it knows something you don’t.
— Steven Sukkau is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
