Donkey

Our first ranch hand, and a hard lesson for the ranchers.

A neighborhood friend had a donkey with no name, so we called him 'Donkey'. He was quite the character. He loved the attention when we would drag family and friends over to visit him, bearing carrots, apples and other goodies to share with him. He would 'hee haw' and holler so loud when it was time to leave that it actually scared the grandkids at first. He seemed really good with people, and we enjoyed our visits.

One day, our friend informed us that he was moving, and was looking to rehome Donkey. He asked if we would be interested in taking him, as he wouldn't have fenced space where he was headed. It seemed like an easy enough ask, and we really enjoyed visiting him, so why not? Isn't that always the million dollar question?

Donkey came to live with us, and seemed to settle in quite nicely. Daily rations of sweet feed and a bail of hay a week, make sure he had water, easy peasy! He enjoyed helping with the pasture cleanup and fencing projects, and we would regularly carry treats to share when we were out and about. He was very curious, and loved hanging out with us.

After a while, we started to notice some troubling behaviors. He was being a bit aggressive, and would get a bit pushy when he wanted attention. We thought maybe it was that he was developing treat aggression, so we tried to manage that a little better. He was really getting sassy with me, and would occasionally try to get me cornered. We asked the neighbors not to give him treats at the fence, and started working on some manners with him.

After we started to get the pasture fencing in better shape, we added 4 cow-calf pairs to our brood. We kept donkey separated from the cows at first in the north pasture. This allowed him could interact with the cows and calves, and we could see how well he would do with them.

We had read that donkeys do well with cows as long as they are raised with them, but we had no idea what Donkey's history looked like before coming to live with us. Donkeys can run a calf to death if not well-suited to live with a herd, so we had to be careful. After several weeks of watching his behavior, it became very apparent that he wasn't going to do well with the herd.

We needed full use of the pastures for the cows, so we had to make the touch decision to rehome him yet again. Fortunately, we were able to return him back to his original owner, who now had a space to keep him. the best part was that he stayed in the neighborhood for some time after that, so we still got to visit with him occasionally.

We learned a hard lesson, and unfortunately Donkey was shuffled around a bit because of our naivety. Taking on an animal requires dedication, and you don't usually get a trial run like we did on this one. We got lucky and we were able to return Donkey to his original home, but it might not have gone that way. We will definitely do our homework up front before taking on another animal!