Livestock Guardians: the Donkey

Alright, welcome back. Today we're going to be talking about the pros and cons of having donkeys as your livestock guardian animal. Okay, so first off, donkeys are both good and bad. And what I mean by that is, I guess the pros would be first off, donkeys are very long-lived. You know, you can have a good quality donkey that lives well, you know, well over 20 years, you know, even into like 30 years old. So if you have, if you find a good donkey that works well for your system, you're going to have a long, especially if you get it young and train it to your system, you can get a long life expectancy and a still useful guardianship from a donkey. Once it's a full-grown mature donkey, it's pretty much, even into its old age, it's still going to be a pretty effective donkey and guardian animal. Okay, first off, if you're trying to group a with sheep or goats, the main issue is you don't want an intact male donkey because there's the chance that he will try and breed your goats or sheep. But mainly, for some reason, the smell of blood when the sheep or goats give birth gets them super upset. And there's lots of cases where they will stomp the newborn and or the mother to death. So it just really gets them upset. Now jennies, on the other hand, or female donkeys don't have that issue. I guess they kind of understand what's going on. And so they are more, or I guess they're pretty forgiving. So they understand they're pretty good with it. Okay, so another pro would be, basically, depending on your farming system, they eat the exact same thing that you're having them guard. So if they're pairing up with goats or sheep or poultry even, I suppose, you know, they're all out there eating pasture. All these donkeys are eating 100% pasture. So not even any kibble. So these donkeys aren't paired with anybody right now. But it's really easy hands off system. If you have guard dogs, you're having to feed them dog food. And that can be very expensive and time consuming and or your goats or sheep might be trying to steal some dog food depending on the, if it's a high corn and soy ingredients in your dog food, they're trying to eat that dog food. It can be a pain and you have issues of dogs, you know, trying to fight the goat or sheep for its food. It can be quite an issue. So donkeys, they eat the same thing. They can eat the same sheep feed, the same goat feed, don't have to get anything super specialized, really. One issue a lot of people have is hooves. There's two ways you can go about this. I know some people that have never trimmed a donkey's hooves. And I know some people that trim them regular. I think one of the things you have to look at is how much protein is in your pastures. If it's a very protein rich pasture with a lot of clover, or what have you, you know, a high protein makes your hair and your nails and all grow faster and denser. So they might need some more hoof attention because of that. If it's a low protein dense pasture and their bulk of their intake is coming from the pasture, well then there would be less need for it. Also, if you have a lot of rocks and stuff in the terrain, well, they might be trimming it them up their own self or some gravel, or maybe they have to travel across a road or something to get to the next pasture. So they might be kind of self medicating, if you will. So those are all things to consider in your particular situation. There's no really shots needed on a yearly basis like a dog would have. And so if you're going to sell your donkey, you are going to need to have a Coggins test, but that's only if you're going to sell your donkey. If you're just keeping it for life, well, you don't really need it. So there is that. So less vet visits and things of that nature. Now, so I mean, I guess there's pros and cons. Everyone's situation is going to be different. They're pretty smart, easily adaptable. These donkeys here actually kind of almost read your mind. When you want to move them from pasture to pasture, just open up a couple gates and they almost know what to do without even having to push them hard or anything like that. Just let them go at their own pace. So anyways, I would give this a consideration. Donkeys over llamas, I guess llamas would eat if you have a kudzu or a lot of woods that llamas would eat at a higher elevation because they have a longer neck. But there again, the donkeys will live a bit longer than a llama. And so on that score, I mean, they're pretty similar for the pros. And the other thing with the cons form is they can have a bit of an attitude and it's harder to correct than like a dog. If a dog develops some attitude, it's quite easy to adjust. Whereas the donkeys are very hard-headed. So once they get something stuck in their brain, they're pretty much done for in that aspect. So anyways, I mean, there's lots of stories of donkeys taking care of coyotes and then like mountain lions and things. So they're very resilient animal, durable. There's different sizes. You can get a mammoth jack, which are really huge draft size. And then you can get a Mediterranean or almost anything in between. So anyways, I hope this helps. If you have any questions, comment down below. Try and answer them when I have a chance. And I'll see you next time. Take care.