Quite a while ago, a rancher made a deal with a wonderful local vet to deliver feral donkeys to the vet’s clinic for castration (of the males) and rehoming. The area in which the donkeys live had been suffering from drought for a long time, and ranchers had taken to shooting the donkeys in order to preserve forage for their cattle. This particular rancher had had enough of that practice, and came up with a way of corraling the donkeys for delivery to the vet clinic.

The poor vet had no idea he was to receive so many donkeys, and put out the word that he needed homes for them. We took four. Two turned out to be pregnant, and three very old donkeys eventually died, so now there are three. They are not tame, but they will tolerate having humans around if the humans provide food, water and minerals.

I have raised sheep for many years. Ideally, I’d rotate between horses, cattle, and sheep, for the sake of the health of my pastures, but right now there’s so much grass that I haven’t been able to find a rancher who wanted to run cattle on my land. It’s feast or famine in that regard.

The sheep lived a very long time, but eventually died off. I now have one old ewe left. I had been very worried about having only one sheep, but the donkeys have taken her in! This morning when I went down to the sheep shed to feed, the little old sheep was standing very calmly in a very tight space between a donkey and the rails of the shed. When I poured feed into a bin for the donkey, she slipped under his belly and began eating his food. He indicated that he would rather not share, and she moved over to her own bucket, completely unharmed. His own herd mates would not have dared stand so close or eat from that bin!

I’ve seen each of the donkeys step up to defend her when they perceived any threat to her, and I’ve seen her act as sentinel when they all decided to lie down for a rest. If I recall correctly, I had rationalized my decision to adopt donkeys by deciding that they would act as guardians for my sheep flock. I guess they did a good job, because I never lost a sheep to a dog attack. But I had no idea that the two species could develop such a close relationship!