"But I Don't WANT a Guard Donkey!"

When we first got our Icelandic Sheep, we kept them close to the house in a field directly adjacent to our back yard.  Actually, they camped every night in our back yard!!  We put hog panels around our rose garden, and that kept our flowers safe.  So we didn't have to worry too much about predators. And it worked out just fine--the sheep were happy, and we could wake up in the morning and look out the back window to see them lounging around just feet from us.  We were all happy.

Then last winter, we began to hear with increasing frequency the singing of coyotes.  When we first came to our farm, we used to enjoy their songs, but then they seemed to become less and less frequent and we missed them.  Until the sheep came.  Then, we were glad our coyotes had become less vocal and we hoped, less numerous.  

All of a sudden this past winter, we were faced with the very real possibility of predator problems. More singing meant more pups come spring, and more pups meant feeding those babies.  Our larger flock size meant we'd need better protection.The sheep will need more space this year because of our increased population, and so we won't be able to keep them for the whole summer and fall in the confines of the small field behind the house.  They will be further from the house and closer to the woods, and we didn't want to wait until we lost one or more sheep before trying to protect them

There are three types of livestock guardians that we investigated: llamas, dogs, and donkeys.  Llamas were definitely interesting, dogs came in a distant second in our minds, and donkeys, well donkeys were an animal I wanted nothing to do with.  With a reputation for being loud, with their penetratingly obnoxious braying, and for being stubborn and unmanageable. They just weren't an option.

I've always loved llamas and wanted two or three.  What a great way to have what I wanted and protect the sheep, too!  Thus began research into llamas as protectors.  The internet was an invaluable source of information.  I called people who had used llamas.  I spoke to llama breeders.  What we found was that llamas discourage predators because they will approach an unfamiliar being head on.  This is enough to cause many predators to go elsewhere, because the llama is a large animal and can be pretty intimidating.  So far, so good.  I was envisioning a llama grazing peacefully with the flock, a lovely sight and, I thought, a safe sight.  Then a sheep breeder we know personally had a llama that seemed to be doing a great job till last year, when the coyotes took a tremendous toll.  After that, I read a gruesome and grisly true story of some llamas being torn up and killed by wild dogs.  Subsequently I read that some llama breeders have protection dogs for their llamas.  This was looking definitely less interesting.  Llamas have no real "fighting apparatus".  Their hooves are rather soft, and their jaw strength is not legendary.  This meant that their two means of "attack", their feet and their mouth, were less effective than I had thought.  I knew I wasn't willing to deal with a dead or maimed llama who was only trying to protect "her" flock.  

We've been breeders of dogs for over 35 years, and we knew that many dogs will also give up their lives for someone or something that they love.  Back to the internet and the telephone.  There is even a book written about livestock guardian dogs, by Raymond Coppinger.  Well, livestock guardian dogs have an excellent reputation, that is the ones that are successful do. They bond strongly with their flock and patrol their territory untiringly, challenging intruders in a most unpleasant way.  Several people we know swear by the effectiveness of their dogs.  

However, there were a couple of problems, as far as we were concerned.  One, we've been involved with dogs for many years in a distinctly different way, promoting the awesome relationship that can exist between dogs and their humans.  Now, we've read and been told that the livestock guardian dog is happiest when with her flock of sheep, and that she truly doesn't "miss" the relationship with humans that most dogs have developed a need for.  While that may be so, we personally had a difficult time with that concept.  But, research them we did, since the llama seemed out of the picture for us, and the donkey was never in the picture. 

We found that there are a number of breeds (Maremma, Great Pyrenees, Akbash, Anatolian, Polish Tatra) developed for this work, and there are a number of very successful breeders who are using these breeds or crossing them to obtain the best qualities of each.  We were surprised to find, though, that the success rate of the number of pups in a given litter was not very high.  We read that maybe 50% of all dogs used for livestock guarding don't work out, that is, either they don't guard or they wind up preying on the stock they were supposed to be guarding.  Yet the advice was to start with a pup whose potential is unknown.  The theory was that the pup would grow and bond with our particular flock and that was the best of all worlds.  Didn't sound that appealing to us, as novices in this kind of training arena.  Hmmm. 

Another thought we had at this time was that having a dog or dogs with the sheep meant providing separate food for the dogs that had to be kept out of range of the sheep who love to eat, largely whatever they can fit into their mouths.  Dog food would qualify, and it had things we didn't want our sheep eating, since dog food is grain based, and our sheep are grassfed only. 

Another potential problem we saw was what could happen if a strange human got into our sheep field.  Guarding is what the livestock guardian dog does, and we had read about cases reported where humans were attacked by guardian dogs.  We live in a lightly populated area, but there have been occasions where strangers have crossed our land.  This wasn't something we wanted to chance.  Given all this, we decided that although some people had had great success with Guardian dogs, that wasn't probably the route we wanted to take.

That left donkeys.  I've never liked donkeys.  In fact, I had a distinct antipathy for them.  I didn't want to even consider them.  But, they seemed like our last option.  So, I set out to prove they wouldn't work.  There isn't a lot written about guardian donkeys, I found.  There are some resources on the internet, and there were a few people I found to talk to about them.  First and foremost, we were told NOT to try miniature donkeys, and that only standard sized donkeys were effective deterrents and dispatchers of predators.

Interesting.  All the people I talked to had standard donkeys and had very good success  with their donkeys.  They got their donkeys and their problems with predators ceased.  I heard stories of large losses that had stopped after getting a donkey or donkeys.  This was definitely not what I wanted to hear.  I did...not...like...donkeys!  Even stranger, the people I talked to loved their donkeys.  I mean really loved them, said they didn't need to be isolated from human contact, even that they (the donkeys) particularly enjoyed their "donkey hugs". (And the people did, too)

But I wanted to get down to the nitty gritty of this business.  How did they protect their flocks?  What made them such good protectors?  Well, through reading and interviewing, I found that the donkey also strongly bonds with their sheep.  Even if they didn't, I found, they are strongly (I mean strongly) territorial.  They don't like intruders in their territory.  Aha, I thought, I've found the Achilles heel.  What about humans?  Well, it seems that the "intruder label" doesn't particularly apply to humans, just animals, as in dogs, coyotes, and other four footed things.  A donkey won't "take up" with strange humans, and they might keep their sheep safely away, but they won't attack. 

OK.  So how do they protect their sheep?  Donkeys have extremely hard, small hooves; and they are amazingly accurate in where they place them, whether that be on the ground or in the air.  Those hooves are very effective projectile missiles.  They have incredibly strong necks, jaws and teeth, capable of lifting, crunching and flinging objects of 50 to 100 lbs.  They also move away from predators, presenting their rears in a way that leads the predator to believe they are retreating and encouraging attack from behind.  What they are really doing is positioning themselves to deliver those projectile missiles in the most effective way.  They can use their front feet in a similar way, stamping an adversary and breaking its bones, but they seem to prefer the back handed (footed) method.   

I looked like I was losing the battle.  Darn!  I asked everyone, "What about their braying?  Isn't it loud and abrasive? How do you deal with that?"  Without an exception, I was told, well, they can be noisy--but they aren't unless there's a reason.  And it isn't that bad.  You get used to it.  Not that bad?  I had heard our friend's donkeys braying--they could raise the roof off the barn! 

At this point, I knew I had to see for myself these "wonderful" donkeys.  Hmph, prove it to me, I thought.  I called a breeder I had talked to by phone, MaryLou Williams of The Rosefield.  I talked to her at GREAT length trying to find a crack in her story.  None found.  We talked about a "potential" donkey for our sheep. She told me how the donkeys worked with the sheep, how they checked out the field, how the sheep seemed to know when there was danger that safety lay close to the donkey(s).  I was also warned that if stray dogs got into the field, they probably wouldn't come out again.  I needed to see these donkeys with the sheep for myself, so we made an appointment, and off I went.  Arriving, I saw one donkey with one group of ewes and babies, and two others with another group of moms and babes.  The sheep were fed some grain, and the donkeys very gently tried to get a mouthful.  Mostly they were pushed out of the way by the ewes--they never shoved back, just left and tried another spot. The babies were tiny, but the donkeys seemed to know just where they were.  MaryLou said in ten years, she had never had a donkey step on a lamb.  Hmmm, that was pretty impressive.  Well, I thought, maybe....

Next we went out to the field where most of the rest of the donkeys were.  I expected lots of jostling and shying when I went into the field.  Nothing.  They first gave me my space and then, by ones and twos, came up to check me out, all eighteen of them.  They were, well, serene!  Peaceful, they watched us, and two of them came up to me and one at a time put their heads in my arms for a hug.  I tried in vain to maintain my objectivity.  Maybe we should try a donkey after all, I thought, IF I could get more evidence of their guarding abilities.  After all, this was going to be a WORKING animal, and if it couldn't do the job, then it wasn't for us.  MaryLou hadn't lost a sheep since she had the donkeys--but of course she has lots of them.  But others I talked to didn't and swore to their effectiveness, too 

The long and the short of it is that we now have Darla, who really does love her hugs!  She's the one I went to look at.  And she watches over the sheep.  Will she be all we hope for?  Time will tell us that, but in the meantime, she has chased the cat out of the field and keeps a watchful eye on our dogs from over the fence.  She moves with well, yes, serenity and sweetness.  She's now had a baby, a little jenny who is the cutest thing we've ever seen!  Darla was never aggressive with the sheep when her baby was born (we were told to watch for that), and Disa (the little jenny) plays with the lambs.  How lovely to watch her nuzzle them softly. And come up to us for her hugs!  We've been told donkeys actually work together in pairs, so we have one of the ones who put her head in my arms coming to join us later in the summer. 

And guess what?  We really love our donkeys!  And they don't bray very much.  And you do get used to it.