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  Discussion on Introducing mini donkeys
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Member:
Penner

Posted on Sunday, Nov 16, 2003 - 11:09 am:

We are starting to have a coyote problem here now (rural area). Something must have happened last pm as the 2 horses that are in the paddock by the house would not go near the stall attached to the paddock this pm. Keep in mind its warm here, so we do not have "barns", we have pipe corrals & shades on them.

I have been hearing coyotes (lots, 5-10 very loud) & they killed something on the other side of our fence somewhere on the neighbors back 10 acres that adjoins, as I can smell it).

We have our entire property fenced with 4.5' wire mesh fencing & this helped for 2 years keeping the coyotes out of our property - but our neighbors don't & they adjoin open state land.

I am getting worried that the coyotes will jump the fence - it certainly seems like they came very close last night as the horses are very afraid to go near that area.

So, I was thinking of adopting a BLM burro as you all are saying donkeys will help protect the horses. Burros, donkeys do they act the same towards coyotes? (or in my ignorance, is a burro a donkey???!!!)

Thanks!
Member:
Penner

Posted on Sunday, Nov 16, 2003 - 12:23 pm:

Well, just checked, the BLM uses the terms donkey & burro interchangeably, so apparently, they are the same. The burros I have seen in the wild around here tho, are much smaller than domestic donkeys I saw (like 50% smaller). Thus, my confusion.
Member:
Paul303

Posted on Sunday, Nov 16, 2003 - 2:59 pm:

Penner, We don't have a coyote problem. We got our Sicilian donkey 3yrs. ago as comic relief....and boy does he deliver! But he's smart as a whip! I DO notice that when we're moving the horses into the barn and back out (twice a day at feeding time ), if my Border collie gets too intense when she's pushing the horses, the donkey will go after her. The collie and the donkey play sometimes, but the donkey sets all the rules, and the collie knows better than to try herding the donkey.
Member:
Maureen

Posted on Sunday, Nov 16, 2003 - 10:59 pm:

Speaking of Mini-Donks....my 4 y/o is so fat! Do y'all have that problem?
When I feed the horses, I give her 10 grains of oats, twice a day. (so she feels special, too!). She gets hay but no pasture.

She is a riot! When she hears me grind coffee in the morning she brays for her (10 grains) food!

She tolerates our dogs but heaven help a strange
dog or animal. She is very sweet and gentle with the grandkids, though. I think they are the perfect companion. And economical...one tube of wormer lasts for 5 wormings!

Member:
Tkranch

Posted on Monday, Nov 17, 2003 - 11:56 am:

Maureen,
Be very careful not to let donkys get to fat. They get hyperlipidemia which can kill them. We mix grass hay with barley straw for them. Regular hay was to rich and high in calories. In the spring and fall we have to keep them off grass or they will "pop". No matter what you have been told they can eat poisonious plants, they can founder, they do need feet and teeth done, and they do need worming. We quit giving grain (it was half a handful)and they don't miss it. If you use straw there are only a couple types they can safely eat without foundering. One is barley and I don't know the other but I do know wheat straw is a no-no.
You can join the American Donkey and Mule Society and they send out "The Brayer" a magazine 6 x yr.It is $20.00: ADMS,POB 1210, Lewisville, Tx 75067, phone 972-219-0781
Member:
Westks

Posted on Monday, Nov 17, 2003 - 12:15 pm:

I have heard many times that donkeys do better on straw than they do hay with grain, and don't get so over weight.

Here is an article I found very informative:

Compared to ruminants and even horses, donkeys ingest larger quantities and sort through their foot more than horses. They must be given forages under a long form ad libitum. A donkey's energy needs are 75% of those of horses.



Compressed feeds should be used moderately. Forages rich in cell wall and straw are better than poor quality hay. Excesses in concentrate, starch, nitrogen, lipids must be avoided.

The donkey is very capable of recycling blood urea to cover the nitrogenous needs of the microbes in the large intestine.

Feeding donkeys
A A Aganga, M Letso and A O Aganga*
Department of Animal Science and Production, Botswana College of Agriculture
Private Bag 0027, Gaborone, Botswana.
E-mail: aaganga@temo.bca.bw
*Department of Animal Health and Production, Ministry of Agriculture,
Private Bag 45, Lobatse, Botswana.

In arid and semi-arid areas, donkeys eat a wide variety of feeds. The donkeys graze, eat forbs and shrubs and the bark of trees. They normally should be allowed to graze for six to seven hours a day on free range. A donkey is a monogastric herbivore thus it eats roughages and utilizes cellulose and hemicellulose efficiently. A donkey that is not used all the time can find sufficient food on the range during the rainy season but may need to be offered supplementary feeds during the dry season or DrOught years. Donkeys graze successfully in most years when there is adequate rainfall and the animals remain in good body condition. When they are working regularly and the animals do not have adequate grazing time then owners must provide feed for the animals. Dry matter intake of the donkey is high compared with other large herbivores, being about 3.1 per cent of liveweight (Maloiy 1973). A general rule of thumb is that a donkey should be provided daily with straw or hay equal to 5% of its bodyweight, even though it may only eat about half of this (Jones 1997). Jones (1997) recommended that for a 200-300 kg donkey carrying 25-70 kg load at 4 km/hour, 6 hours/day, the diet should consist of 500g grain (coarsely ground maize or sorghum) and 2.5 kg chaff (by-product of dry cereal milling) or cowpea pods or peanut shells. She also suggested that some chaff could be replaced with hay or straw (dry grass). The ration should be given to the donkey in the morning, and then the same amount again in the evening.

Horse cubes are available in most countries for supplementary feed for horses, which donkeys actually enjoy. However, donkeys need more fibre and less protein in their diets than horses. Donkeys are different from horses in many ways, therefore they should not be fed like horses and they are not ruminants so they must not be fed like cattle, sheep or goats. For example urea may be poisonous to donkeys in large quantities. Therefore if donkeys have access to cattle lick with urea in the constituents, they must not consume too much to prevent urea poisoning.

Donkeys are grazers as well as browsers (Aganga and Tsopito 1998). The teeth and lips of donkeys permit them to graze close to the ground; thus they can graze short vegetation efficiently. Donkeys are non-selective grazers and can feed on a wide variety of foodstuffs, including kitchen leftovers.


Feeding behaviour
Feeding behaviour of donkeys is thought to be characterized by large intakes with low nutrient extraction. High rates of intake can be achieved by rapid chewing, large bites, effective chewing per bite, or sacrifice in particle size reduction (Mueller et al 1998). The donkey differs somewhat from the horse because its narrow muzzle and mobile lips promote greater selectivity in feeding. This allows it to maximize feed quality rather than quantity. The donkey may use a selective feeding strategy, searching for high quality bites when foraging over a heterogeneous pasture or rangeland, but when provided with homogenous hay employs an alternative strategy of maximizing intake. Mueller et al (1998) observed that, in practice, donkeys faced with some perceived need consume more food quickly, such as following an intentional or unintentional fast, or restricted time in which to eat due to insufficient feeder space, competition from herd mates or long hours spent working. Under these conditions the donkey may resort not to faster chewing but to incomplete chewing. This, it was observed, could result in problems such as oesophageal obstruction (choke) and intestinal impaction. A donkey, which ate rapidly following a period of food restriction, was reported to suffer from oesophageal obstruction (Mueller et al 1998).

Chewing activity is an important aspect of feeding behaviour in donkeys. All herbivores, especially those that derive energy from microbial fermentation of fibre, must chew their food in order to prepare it for digestion. The donkey chews fragments of plant cells to reduce the feed particle size, promote salivary secretion and allow wetting of feed. The donkey (a non-ruminant herbivore) has only one opportunity during mastication to complete the physical processing of feed, unlike the ruminants that chew upon initial ingestion (mastication) and again during rumination. The amount of time a donkey spends chewing a given amount of food is affected by a variety of factors, including the physiologic state, level of intake, amount of fibre in the diet, physical form of the feed, particle size of the feed and the health of the animal.

Physiological differences between the activities of the gastrointestinal tract of donkeys and that of ruminants are not readily apparent in spite of the obvious anatomical differences (Maloiy and Clemens 1980). The dry matter consistency of fore gut contents, the addition of fluids to the contents of the small intestines and the drying of the gut contents rearwards from the caecum to the rectum are all similar. Organic acid concentration in the upper (cranial) part of the donkey's stomach appears similar to that found in the rumen of ruminants although the volume of the gut fill is much smaller (Wilson 1990). In the donkey, the relative capacity of the stomach is 14 while that of caecum and colon is about 80: in ruminants the stomach has a relative capacity of about 80 and the caecum and colon about 13. In the donkey, microbial digestion occurs principally in the caecum and colon while in ruminants it takes place in the rumen. The stomach of ruminants and the large intestine of the donkey are therefore functionally similar (Wilson 1990).


Feeding guides
Provide adequate clean, fresh water in clean watering troughs everyday.
Feeding time and method should be consistent daily for the donkey.
Feed donkeys intermittently with little food each time to prevent or minimise the risk of digestive upsets.
Food provided should be free of foreign materials like plastic bags and any other materials (hardware), which might be dangerous to the donkey.
A regularly working donkey with no adequate grazing time should be provided with some concentrate feeds to supplement its basal roughage diet.
A donkey should be allowed a rest period after a very large feed.
If necessary donkeys can be fitted with rope-mesh muzzle to stop them eating when they are working.
Donkeys should be allowed to rest between long working hours. During the rest period, the animals should be offered water and a little feed. Many donkeys will not eat or drink when in harness. Therefore, it may be necessary to remove all harnessing depending on individual donkey's preferences.
Donkeys should be fed to maintain body condition rather than to recover condition, which is more difficult, once it is lost.

Coprophagy
Coprophagy occurs in young donkeys which often eat the faeces of their dams within a few months of birth. This is viewed as a way for the young donkeys to obtain cellulose digesting bacteria and other microbes, which are abundant in the faeces. Adult, well-fed donkeys on a balanced diet, do not normally practice coprophagy. It occurs occasionally in housed donkeys that are bored and due to lack of stimulatory activities start to eat their own faeces. This is regarded as a behavioural disorder or bad habit.


Nutrient requirements
Water
Donkeys have lower water requirement per unit of weight than other domesticated animals, except the camel. Water intake of a donkey is influenced by the amount of work being done, the temperature and humidity of the environment, the dryness of the feed being consumed and the physiological status of the animal. Water requirement of a fully-grown adult donkey is in the range of 18 to 35 litres per day according to the above circumstances (Fielding and Krause 1998). Donkeys appear to feel less thirsty than other animals when exposed to water deprivation and may continue to eat when most animals, other than the camel, have stopped eating as a result of water shortage. Donkeys can withstand up to 20 - 25 percent weight loss due to dehydration and recover this loss when water becomes available. Dehydration in the thermo-neutral zone and at high ambient temperatures of 40ºC depresses food intake but apparently increases digestibility of ingested dry matter. Maloiy (1973) stated that intermittent changes in temperature, such as diurnal variation in air temperature of deserts, do not depress appetite providing water is not limited. Donkeys should be offered water at least once or preferably twice per day to ensure good functioning of their digestive system and provide oportunity for body water to evaporate, so maintaining body temperature.

Donkeys should not be offered very cold water when they are still hot from working. The water must be clean since donkeys may refuse to drink dirty water even when they need water (Jones 1997). Donkeys can go without water for up to 3 days without harm to the animal when there is water shortage.

Energy
Donkeys require less energy per unit of weight than cattle for walking which is due to skeletal differences, which make movement in equids more energy efficient. Digestible energy (DE) requirement of donkeys per unit of weight are about 75 percent those of horses and similar to those of ponies and small horses. DE requirement can be estimated at 465 W0.75 KJ/day where W is the live weight of the donkey in kg. Therefore a donkey of 150 kg requires for maintenance 465*1500.75 kJ of digestible energy = 19931 kJ or in practical terms 20 MJ (Fielding and Krause 1998). Energy requirement for work above maintenance is influenced by the size of the load, the slope of the land, the nature of the ground and the positioning and balancing of the load on the donkey. Energy requirements can be estimated from the energy costs of the different activities associated with work and knowledge of the amount of work done and distance traveled. Tables 1 and 2 show available data from Pearson et al (1995) on energy requirements of donkeys. Donkeys are able to digest high fibre forage diets and utilize organic acids for energy. Therefore, virtually all donkeys in Botswana are grazed or fed on straw and hay. The donkeys require the fibre to keep their digestive systems fully functional and to ensure a steady rate of food passage through the gut.









Member:
Paul303

Posted on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2003 - 12:21 am:

Oh, gosh, Maureen, the weight thing is sooo tough! Ceasar was pitifully puny when we got him, but now, his weight is harder to control than my own! He comes in with the horses at feed time, and when we tried to cut out his 1 cup of feed, he bellowed and brayed until we had to give in. He now gets about 1/4 cup of pellets in a huge pan spread out, wet slightly, and mushed onto the pan bottom. So far, it has kept him busy until the horses are done and everyone goes back out. We used to give him pieces of horse treats for the tricks we taught him, but we had to cut that out. Now, for his tricks, he gets one cheerio.....surprisingly, it works.
Member:
Maureen

Posted on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2003 - 12:58 am:

The weight really bothers me. I worry about her.
I have the same problem as you....she is with two horses.
I give Natalie about 5 grains of crimped oats. But she does eat the horses' grass hay.

I put her in the round pen and try to get her to exercise.
It's hilarious to see those little legs pumping around a 60' pen. When she has had enough, that's it.
No budging her.
Member:
Parfait

Posted on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2003 - 10:49 am:

I'd like to know what tricks Ceasar does--Dinky is far smarter than my Arabs and I bet I could teach her something useful (other than banging her stall door). Coyotes are fair game but we have cougers and had to bring her in at night.

She just did a "donkey flurry" yesterday (running bucking and braeing like crazy). Dinky can fling rocks to the roof. It always sends the horses and dogs into orbit. She seems to do this when it's windy. I used to think it was the wind in her ears but now I think she just does it for fun. It's quite a spectacle. I was wondering if other donkeys did this?
Kerry
Member:
Paul303

Posted on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2003 - 8:38 pm:

Ceaser does "give me your paw", he bows, and he smiles. He's starting to get some others, like "sing" ( this one could be a mistake ), and p scratch" ( presents p and backs persistantly into any poor slob we can trick into saying this). He would rather have a p scratch than a piece of carrot.ceaser
Member:
Parfait

Posted on Thursday, Nov 20, 2003 - 1:25 am:

He's very cute and I love his name! I think I'll start on Dinky's training right away. She'll do anything for a dog biscuit.

Kerry
Member:
Tkranch

Posted on Thursday, Nov 20, 2003 - 12:37 pm:

We started with 2 donks and then did a rescue so we have 3 now. We made an area for the donks to be fed in. They get locked in at feed time with their straw/hay mix and are let out when everyone is done so they don't try eating the horses hay. It is for their own good. We also have a diet field we put them in when the grass is to rich or they need some weight management. A few years ago we noticed them getting fatter and fatter. That is when we heard about the lipid problems they can get. It has taken 3yrs to get their weight down (they are still plump but don't have the bubble butt or slab sides). My husband loves the donks and has made small sawbuck packs for them. I also bought some horse pads and packs and made day packs for them.
You should see them play! They try to knock each other over by grabbing the front legs or swinging their head and neck into each other from a rearing position, then they go tearing across the field trying to grab the hind legs. First one is the chaser then they tag and the other one chases.The horses are so use to it they don't even look up any more.
We got "The Professional Handbook of the Donkey", by Dr E. Svendsen. It has alot of info and is well worth having.
Member:
Tkranch

Posted on Thursday, Nov 20, 2003 - 12:42 pm:

I forgot to add: I don't rember if it was in one of the "Brayer" magazines or the "Prof.Donk Book" but it said as much as 1 cup of dog food can kill/or badly sicken a donky because of the protein content...becareful with the dog biscuits. Cheerios is a great idea. We use carrot pennies or butt scratches(it is easy to please these guys).
Member:
Parfait

Posted on Thursday, Nov 20, 2003 - 12:58 pm:

Thanks, I think I'm switching to the cherrios. Excellent idea. My Mom just put down her old gal at 40 and she used to feed her bread when guests would come--perverse, I think. Isabella, The old lady, could barely hold her head up but would hustle over for massages.
Member:
Maureen

Posted on Friday, Nov 21, 2003 - 11:26 pm:

They get locked in at feed
time with their straw/hay mix and are let out when everyone is done so
they don't try eating the horses hay. It is for their own good.
--------------------------------------------------
Well, thanks, y'all. I am going to put Natalie up when the horses are eating their hay. She will be so angry. But you are right...it's for her own good. And I want to breed her in the spring.
Out of curiousily....what do you think of Mini-Mules?
Member:
Dawson

Posted on Monday, Oct 30, 2006 - 4:49 pm:

Congrat's on the mini donks!
We went to a mini horse farm that also had mini donks-tan or buckskin, brown with a cross, and pintos, they all had great personalities.

Then my friend purchased a whole shipment 18/mini donks from a far going out of business. Her farm is primarily horses, emu's, pheasants/guinea hens, pigs(BIG ones)cattle, ostrich's, etc. As usual I fell in love with a blind 30 year old mini donk that for whatever reason attached himself to following me everywhere. UNTIL... he gave out the loudest brays, which were echo'd all over her farm by the other donks. There went that idea out the window our suburban neighbors wouldn't be pleased. I envy you and maybe some day I will have a donk of my own....
Member:
Zarr

Posted on Tuesday, Oct 31, 2006 - 12:13 pm:

In case some missed this a year or so back a elaborate tomb was found in Egypt and they thought another royal person had been found!When they finally opened the tomb what they found were 10 donkeys who had been royally buried no people just the donkeys!! Go Donkeys!! Cindy
Member:
Kathleen

Posted on Tuesday, Oct 31, 2006 - 1:58 pm:

Go Donks
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