Donkeys

[Donkeylover]

Hi , I have a 3/4 acre piece of land next to my house and I’m considering rehoming a pair of donkeys . The land it split up in to 4 , same size areas ( all with secure fencing and field shelters and a hard standing ) . There is also quite a lot of natural shelter like trees and hedges . I wondered if any one has any idea if this sounds okay for donkeys and the home check people would be okay with this ?
thank you so much

 

[stangs]

Might depend on the rescue, but most equine rescues require 1 acre per horse and the Donkey Sanctuary (tricky to rehome from to begin with) require 1 acre per pair of donkeys.

Depending on the size of the hard standing, it sounds like your land would get trashed quite quickly too.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

My donkeys live out with only natural shelter. But they are appropriately rugged and they have several shelter areas of choice depending on wind and weather direction, and a very large acreage of winter grazing.

I have kept just 2 on less than an acre but had hard standing and they were stabled at night, here in wet Ireland they would have sunk up to their knees otherwise.

I doubt a rescue would be happy without purpose built shelter on such a small area, but as you seem to have that you might be lucky.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

You can but try and if one rescue turns you down you can always try another.

 

[MurphysMinder]

Donkey Sanctuary are notoriously hard to rehome from, so I have a feeling you wouldn't pass the home check . I know people with what I would consider to be good accommodation for donkeys who were turned down, and of course they won't rehome donkeys to live with horses, crazy. If you are prepared to give hay for most of the year then I think your acreage would be okay, I kept a horse , pony and donkey on around 1.5 acres for many years, it was hard work managing the land but it was doable.

 

[Quigleyandme]

I’ve recently been approved to re-home a pair of donkeys (George and Hector aged 22) from the Donkey Sanctuary. The inspector’s main requirements were a large area of hard standing, the facilities to have the donkeys off the grass for extended periods every day to combat obesity, adequate shelter because their coats aren’t waterproof and a year round supply of barley straw to eat and somewhere to store it. They are Asiatic, designed for hot, dry climates and need to be managed as such.

 

[stangs]

I’ve recently been approved to re-home a pair of donkeys (George and Hector aged 22) from the Donkey Sanctuary. The inspector’s main requirements were a large area of hard standing, the facilities to have the donkeys off the grass for extended periods every day to combat obesity, adequate shelter because their coats aren’t waterproof and a year round supply of barley straw to eat and somewhere to store it. They are Asiatic, designed for hot, dry climates and need to be managed as such.

They're African, not Asiatic.

 

[SEL]

There are 3 donkeys next door to my yard. A physical shelter had to go up even though we have good hedges and the donkeys do use it when it's really wet. They must be on about 1.5 acres split into 3 paddocks and even though they have tiny feet it still gets poached.

 

[Muddy unicorn]

Do you mean three to four acres or three quarters of an acre?