Dr. Do-a-Lot

It was a desperation deal, completed after a few days of scrambling by General Manager Bill Stoneman.

Had Juan Rivera not broken his leg during a winter-league game in Venezuela, an injury that is expected to sideline the Angels’ second-best slugger until at least the All-Star break, Shea Hillenbrand would not be in Angels camp today honing his swing and taking grounders at the corner-infield spots.

In Hillenbrand, who signed a one-year, $6.5-million deal Dec. 26, four days after Rivera’s injury, the Angels have a 31-year-old designated hitter who has averaged 18 homers and 82 runs batted in over the last five seasons.

Not exactly the big bopper they were seeking to protect Vladimir Guerrero in the lineup, but a player capable of replacing a fair share of the punch they lost when Rivera, who batted .310 with 23 homers and 85 RBIs last season, went down.

There’s a potential bonus -- Hillenbrand, who nearly came to blows with Toronto Blue Jays Manager John Gibbons during a heated clubhouse incident last July, could replace some of the grit and feistiness the Angels lost when Darin Erstad and Adam Kennedy, considered “ultimate gamers,” left as free agents this winter.

“When I go out there every night, I want to kill people,” Hillenbrand said. “I want to do everything I can, put it on the line every night. I don’t care if I’m hurt, I’m feeling bad, I’m hung over, I’m having problems off the field ... I put that aside, go out there, and all I want to do is win.”

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

Hillenbrand, in the expansive yard of his home on the outskirts of Phoenix’s suburbs, in a tract surrounded by dairy and horse farms in the shadow of the San Tan Mountains, pokes the scaly head of an Aldabra tortoise named Scoop, trying to lure the creature out of its shell.

The tortoise, a birthday gift from his wife, Jessica, is about eight years old and weighs 100 pounds. Full grown, it will be 4 1/2 feet wide, 3 1/2 feet tall and weigh 700 pounds. A native of the Aldabras, four coral islands in the Indian Ocean north of Madagascar, Scoop could live for 100 years.

“They’re like tanks,” Hillenbrand said. “You’ll actually be able to ride her.”

Surrounding Scoop are a number of smaller Sulcata tortoises, which hail from the Sahara Desert and thrive on intense heat. There are 35 in all, most with the first letter or two of their names marked in Sharpie pen on their shells.

Dixie, Daisy and Riley, a trio of miniature horses, wander over. They seem friendly enough, and Daisy has been known to raid Hillenbrand’s iced tea stash and grab carrots out of the kitchen refrigerator, but don’t let that playfulness fool you.

“They were bred to pull carts in the coal mines,” Hillenbrand said. “They have the temperament of a full-grown horse in a small body, so you can have some problems with them. But mine are great.”

Hillenbrand moves to a stall containing his newest additions, Vacita, an aging dwarf cow with a deformed leg, and her sidekick, Lance, a small goat who shadows the shaggy-haired beast.

“It makes us feel good to give her a chance in life,” said Hillenbrand, who adopted the cow from the Phoenix Zoo. “The goat came because they grew up together and are inseparable.”

An enclosure on the other side of the yard includes three rescued rabbits and a seven-month-old wallaby, a native of Australia.

“He’s very friendly,” Hillenbrand says of Josiah, who has a small, narrow head and freakishly long tail. “I can go get him.”

For five minutes, Kangaroo Court is in session. Hillenbrand chases Josiah, and the wallaby eludes Hillenbrand with lightning-quick, five-foot-long leaps. It looks like an alternative agility drill, and Hillenbrand’s four barking schnauzers seem to find it all amusing.

“Remember how Rocky chased those chickens in ‘Rocky II’?” said Doug Gardner, Hillenbrand’s sports psychologist. “He’s chasing the wallaby.”

Hillenbrand gives up, moving to his five guinea pigs, while Jessica lures Josiah into a cloth pouch meant to resemble his mother.

Jessica plops Josiah into Hillenbrand’s lap, and what follows is a rare scene: a big league baseball player conducting an interview while nursing a baby wallaby with a bottle of dog formula meant to simulate the milk of his mother.

“This is awesome,” Hillenbrand said. “We enjoy this so much and spend a lot of time here with the kids. We don’t take many vacations. When you have all these responsibilities, you don’t have time to do much else. But that’s by choice.”

The Angels knew they’d be getting a solid bat and versatile if not Gold Glove-caliber defender in Hillenbrand.

They didn’t know they’d be getting a modern-day Dr. Dolittle.

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Hillenbrand grew up in Mesa, Ariz., with an affection for animals, but Jessica, whose father is a veterinarian at the Phoenix Zoo, helped turn that into a passion.

From the street, the Hillenbrand’s ranch-style home, which sits on a 1.2-acre lot, looks unremarkable, but since buying the house in 2003 they’ve turned the backyard into a virtual petting zoo, with some 55 animals.

Surrounding a swimming pool and a giant jungle gym are specialized enclosures for the pets, some with air-conditioned or heated shelters and one -- for the rabbits -- with an inside mist system.

It seems to be a lot of work, but the Hillenbrands have one full-time ranch hand, and friends and family members pitch in. Adopted son Austin, 2, feeds lettuce to the tortoises. Everyone knows how to operate a pooper scooper.

Where one might expect chaos, organization rules. Animal House, this isn’t.

“Believe it or not, all the animals we have are pretty low-maintenance, and we keep everything clean,” Hillenbrand said. “The biggest thing is delegating the time to go to Costco once a week to buy all the food.”

Hillenbrand walks the miniature horses around the neighborhood, and the family has hosted parties for kids from the nearby East Valley Child Crisis Center.

Austin loves poking and prodding the creatures, and Hillenbrand can’t wait for his two other adopted children, Dakota, 7 months, and Noah, 4 months, to partake in the fun.

“It’s great for our kids to be exposed to this, to have chores and responsibility for some animals,” Hillenbrand said.

There are expansion plans. Hillenbrand has purchased a 13-acre horse farm two miles away and will break ground on a new house this summer.

The farm boards 115 horses, including Hillenbrand’s quarter horse. Hillenbrand plans to add a zebra, buffalo, camel and some deer to his collection. The house will include an indoor aviary.

The Hillenbrands will fit right in. One of their new neighbors owns two giraffes and two zebras.

“This is what life is all about,” Hillenbrand said. “I have tremendous passion for baseball, I give 100% on the field, but there’s lot more to life than baseball. This keeps me grounded. It makes me extremely happy.”

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This home version of Hillenbrand -- soft, nurturing, lover of animals and children -- doesn’t always mesh with his on-field demeanor, which can be ornery as a bull.

One reason he has retained the services of Gardner for eight years is that the sports psychologist “knows how to get me to control my intense competitiveness,” Hillenbrand said.

“I’m one way at the field and totally different at home. It’s business at the field, but you have to find that happy medium, or you’ll make yourself miserable. You have to joke around, have fun, interact with teammates, coaches.”

Hillenbrand was miserable last season in Toronto. An American League All-Star and the Blue Jays’ most valuable player in 2005, Hillenbrand’s Toronto career soured last July, when his simmering feud with Gibbons -- the pair went two months without talking after an argument over playing time in May -- boiled over.

Hillenbrand said the Blue Jays were angry he left the team for three days in July to complete the adoption of his daughter. Hillenbrand was mad no one from the front office sent congratulations after the adoption and was further angered when, upon his return, he was held out of the lineup for consecutive games.

“They should have traded me two months ago,” Hillenbrand said before a July 19 game.

Tensions escalated that night when Hillenbrand refused to sit in the dugout with the team. Gibbons fumed about three defamatory comments on a clubhouse board, two of which Hillenbrand admits writing.

The manager challenged Hillenbrand to a fight. Hillenbrand was designated for assignment after the game and eventually traded to San Francisco.

Hillenbrand accused Blue Jays General Manager J.P. Ricciardi of “trying to bury me.” Seven months later, all Ricciardi wanted to bury was the hatchet.

“That’s in the past, it’s all done,” Ricciardi said. “He’s with the Angels, and we’ve moved on, so I don’t want to comment on that. We wish him nothing but the best.”

Said new Angels reliever Justin Speier, a Toronto teammate last season: “It’s an emotional game, and sometimes emotions carry over. It was an unfortunate situation from both sides.”

As for Hillenbrand, “That might have been one of best things to happen in my career,” he said. “I was able to get out of there.”

Hillenbrand, nearly traded to the Angels for Kennedy last May, drew interest from the Yankees this winter, but he preferred Anaheim over the Bronx Zoo. The Angels were the first team he told his agent to call.

The Angels, though, showed only a passing interest in Hillenbrand until Rivera got hurt. Hillenbrand jumped at the Angels’ offer, assuring Manager Mike Scioscia he was willing to be a designated hitter, a role he didn’t embrace in Toronto.

“I have a lot of respect for the organization, and I respect Scioscia tremendously for the way he played the game,” Hillenbrand said. “I’m along the same lines -- no [bull]. ... I’m really excited to be here, and anything I can do to help, I will.”

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mike.digiovanna@latimes.com