Mammoth Donkeys

Suzanne and Ron Paddock run a small ranch near Boulder, Manitoba, but unlike most prairie livestock producers, the Paddocks raise donkeys. They call their operation Big Ears Donkey Ranch and focus on mammoth donkeys, which are the largest breed. Females, or jennies, have to be at least 54 inches tall, and males, also known as jacks, have to be at least 56 inches tall. When they first started out, they thought it would be just a hobby. We just bought three for the fun of it, just to have a little fun and raise a baby donkey or two. And then I advertised the one in the paper, and people started phoning right away for registered mammoth donkeys. So the jack was registered, and we went to Alberta and got two jennies, and then the next year we went and got four jennies. And ever since then, we haven't bought any more. We've been just keeping our own, and we just imported a jack from the States just once, so far. Big Ears Donkey Ranch has grown to the point where they had about 25 animals at the time of our visit. Gestation for the donkeys is a full 12 months, so Ron says they don't expect the jennies to produce offspring every year. We had eight babies last year, and this is them in this pen, all yearly jacks. And then we have the jennies in another pen, and we have a team we drive in another pen, and then our jacks, we keep them individual by themselves. They just won't get along with anybody. And then we bring them into the corral for breeding purposes. One of the things the paddocks like most about their other donkeys is their calm disposition. Donkeys aren't naturally calm, but they can learn this trait if they grow accustomed to being around people. My wife Suzanne works with them as soon as they're born, lifting up their feet and just taking them away from their mother and working with them. And then they get to be good and quiet, and you can go to the pasture and catch them, or they'll come up to you in the corral. As mammoth donkey breeders, one of their goals is to produce desirable breeding stock, which other breeders are looking for. In recent years, spotted coats have been very hard to find. These two are spotted. This was our first spotted one. So we kept her for a replacement jetty. Her name's Iola, and she will be bred this year for the first time. She'll be three, or she is three now. So there's not many spotted mammoth donkeys in Canada. At one time there was a herd of them in Alberta, and apparently the whole herd got sold to somebody in Texas. The paddocks imported this jack from the United States to add a new bloodline to their herd, and they expect he will help them meet the demand for mules. And we breed our smaller jennies to this jack from Leesburg, Virginia, to try and get that 15 hands tall for a jack, because there's quite a demand for jacks these days to breed mares, horse mares, to get mules. Quite a demand for mules. Suzanne says the starting price for their donkeys is usually around $1,000, but can go quite a bit higher depending on the animal's confirmation and what it will be used for. The market for them is guardians. A lot of them are wanting them for that, and we've had a lot of good reports about that, a lot of good feedback from people that have bought them from us. A lot of people like them just for pets, some of them want to just take them to the fair in their hometown, or we drive a team and some people are wanting to drive them single and double. People are using them for packing, lots of different things. Donkeys have a reputation for being stubborn animals, but Ron says they've found that that's not true at all. They're just, they're a slower moving animal and respond a little slower, but they drive very well. Once they've done something once, they never forget and they have a very good mind for, like everywhere we go people say, oh they're stubborn donkeys, but donkeys are not stubborn. They're very cautious and they have to be sure they're safe and that their owner's safe before they will do things. The paddocks register every one of their donkeys so that prospective buyers have all the information they need. When it comes to feeding these animals, it's important to make sure they don't get too much grain. They're never force-fed or anything, they're basically just hay and when we wean them, then they get their little bit of oats for a while till they grow up and then they don't get it as much anymore because they'll store the fat in their necks, on the crest of their neck, and if that happens and you let that go, the muscles will give out and then that neck will hang over on that side forever, you can't repair it. So oats is just something that they should never have more than a cup full a day when they're adults. They have taken their donkeys to a number of Manitoba livestock shows and have been invited to show them at the Calgary Stampede. Buyer interest in these animals appears to be spreading. One of our females, somebody in New Zealand inquired about last year, but we didn't want to sell her, so we didn't let her go, but that would be something down the road that would be interesting for us too, because when you started with just a little project of three donkeys and now people across the world are emailing you and phoning you for them, it kind of makes you feel pretty good about it. Donkeys stand up to prairie winters quite well, but the paddocks provide them with shelter if they need to get out of the wind. On average, donkeys usually have a lifespan of 25 to 35 years, with a few even making it into their 40s.