Donkey as a Guardian for Goats

DFisher

Eight Pointer
Anyone here use a donkey as a guardian animal? We have goats in the pen, and coyotes out, and need to keep it that way. The choices for guardians seem to be a guardian dog or a donkey. The wife says donkey, but how do you know if one will do a good job. Is it simply luck? The man across the road has one with his cows, and that thing makes a ton of noise. Others are never heard. I just hate to spend money on one to get it home and find out it is just a pet. Any thoughts?
 

dobber

Old Mossy Horns
My only experience with a donkey was from my Aunt, she is one of those over the top save every animal people, well she has an old dog that she saved from the pound, she heard of a donkey that was going to get put down so she took it in, first day she walked out to that old donkey and that old dog came with, in a flash that donkey ran at the dog, chomped down and picked that dog up, shook it too and fro and tossed it 20 feet out the corral. She was horrified, apparently not all animals live together like a Disney movie
 

darkthirty

Old Mossy Horns
My dad has one with his goats. He is a bad ass (pun intended). He will kill anything that comes in the pasture.
Here’s the problem. He will also kill newborn kids. We learned that the hard way and Pete now has a rump full of bird shot from that day in 2003 when we found out.
We just put our does up or moved them to another pasture and once the kids are 3+ days old, he does not bother them.
I’ve read where Jenny’s are known to not be as bad and there’s also some out there don’t seem to care and won’t kill’em. My dads is a gelded jack.
Here’s something else to consider, if you feed a medicated goat feed with rumensin or other similar medication, it will kill the hell out of a donkey or horse quick fast and in a hurry.
Just FYI........There’s been some recent research done out of Texas A & M that suggests if you have goats/sheep and coyotes and have not had problems, the worst thing you can do is kill your coyotes. These are “good coyotes” and with their territorial nature, will keep any “bad coyotes” ran off. In the study, farms who consistently shot/trapped coyotes around their livestock, had predation problems whereas those farms that never had problems but yet still had coyotes and did nothing, never had predation issues.
 

darkthirty

Old Mossy Horns
Me personally, with my goats, I worry more about dogs and eagles than I do coyotes. I have pics of coyotes weekly on my trail cameras and knock on wood, not one single issue to date.
 

Bailey Boat

Twelve Pointer
I once witnessed a full size Mule kill a neighbors dog for chasing the horses. To say it was a brutal death would be an understatement. I don't think the dog ever chased him, only the horses as far as I knew.......
 

silvertip

Six Pointer
If you have any small children I would not have one around, I know 2 different people that have scars for life from donkeys both would have been killed if someone had not been close by.
 

nccatfisher

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
I had goats for years and had donkeys also. The chance of them stomping newborns are about 50/50. Some will some won't, I had to get rid of the ones that would and it is usually the males. They will absolutely stomp ANY canine to death.
 

nccatfisher

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Me personally, with my goats, I worry more about dogs and eagles than I do coyotes. I have pics of coyotes weekly on my trail cameras and knock on wood, not one single issue to date.
Eagles, large hawks and vultures are terrible on newborn kids. I found out the hard way about that.
 

Sp8

Ten Pointer
We have several goats and always had trouble with coyotes. We have 2 mini donkeys in the past the first was older Jack and he seemed to stay with the cows more and not care about the goats. The other was a young Jack and he did the same. I was talking with another farmer and he claimed you need to get a young Jenny only a few months old and she will bond with goats. Me I prefer a llama. We had one years ago and he meant business. The baby goats would climb on him and play while the nannies grazed and ventured out. I would not turn my back on him because he was very protective. Anything that was not in the pasture when he got there he would kill. Found several coons, skunks, opossums, foxes, and coyotes he'd stomped to death.
 

DBCooper

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
My only experience with a donkey was from my Aunt, she is one of those over the top save every animal people, well she has an old dog that she saved from the pound, she heard of a donkey that was going to get put down so she took it in, first day she walked out to that old donkey and that old dog came with, in a flash that donkey ran at the dog, chomped down and picked that dog up, shook it too and fro and tossed it 20 feet out the corral. She was horrified, apparently not all animals live together like a Disney movie

I had a similar experience with a burrow and a new goat (to the herd).

Scared the crap out of me.
 

Weekender

Twelve Pointer
Anyone here use a donkey as a guardian animal? We have goats in the pen, and coyotes out, and need to keep it that way. The choices for guardians seem to be a guardian dog or a donkey. The wife says donkey, but how do you know if one will do a good job. Is it simply luck? The man across the road has one with his cows, and that thing makes a ton of noise. Others are never heard. I just hate to spend money on one to get it home and find out it is just a pet. Any thoughts?

Yes, a donkey is a great babysitter for a pasture. They innately hate dogs of any stripe. My dad had a bunch of donkeys/burros as pets growing up in WV. I'm not saying a pack of yotes couldn't take one down, but they'd know they'd been in a fight and would have broken bones to show for their trouble.

Don't ever let your pet dog in the pasture with your donkeys.
 
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