Donkey

Donkeys can also be termed as ass (Equus africanus asinus) and is a domesticated member of the horse family, Equidae. The Wild ass of Africa, E. africanus is the wild ancestor of the donkey.  For approximately 5000 years, the donkey has been used as a working animal. In the whole nation, there are over 40 million donkeys, majorly found in underdeveloped countries, where they are mostly used as draught or pack animals.

Those residing at or under subsistence levels are frequently associated with working donkeys. In developed countries, a limited number of donkeys are retained for breeding or even as pets.

According to the donkey information, a male donkey or ass is referred to as a jack, a female as a jenny or a jennet; a foal is a young donkey. 

Jack donkeys or male donkeys are also used to produce mules along with female horses; instead, the biological "reciprocal" of a mule is named a hinny, having a stallion and jenny as its parents.

About Donkey 

If one talks about the types of donkeys, then it would be right to say that in the world, there have been over 40 million types of donkeys, most often in poor nations, in which they are mainly used as draught or packing animals.

Asses, possibly in Egypt or Mesopotamia, had been domesticated approximately 3000 BC, and also have spread all over the world. In several cases today, they keep filling the important roles. Even when domesticated species have been increasing in number, a threatened species is observed, named the African wild ass. If we talk About donkey working with humans, asses and donkeys had also worked along with humans for millennia as beasts of burden as well as companions.

Characteristics

• Based on breed and management, donkeys differ greatly in size. Wipes range in height from 7.3 to 15.3 hands and weight between 80 to 480 kg (180 to 1,060 lb). Employed donkeys have quite an average lifespan of 12 to 15 years in the developing world; they may have had a lifetime of 30 to 50 years in more affluent countries.

• Donkeys adapt to the marginal lands of the desert. Wild donkeys in dry areas, unlike wild and feral horses, are independent and therefore do not create harems. 

• A home range is defined by every other adult donkey; breeding over a wide area can be governed by one jack.

• The donkey's loud call or bray, which usually lasts for twenty seconds and can be heard for more than three kilometres, can support in keeping touch with other donkeys throughout the large desert spaces. Donkeys have big ears that can grab more distant sounds which help in cooling down the blood of the donkey.

Breeding

• Jenny or a female donkey is typically pregnant for around 12 months, although the duration of gestation ranges between 11 to 14 months, and probably gives birth to a healthy foal. It is rare for twins to be born, but less so than for horses. 

• Approximately 1.7 percent of donkey pregnancies end in twins; about 14 percent of those living with both foals.

• Jennies have a pregnancy rate in particular that is extremely low than those of horses (i.e. much less than mares' 60-65 percent rate).

• Although jennies enter heat in under 9 or 10 days of delivery, their fertility drops significantly and the reproductive tract is unlikely to return to normal. Thus, unlike most of the practice with mares, it's also usual to queue for one or two further oestrous cycles prior to actually rebreeding.

• Jennies are generally quite possessive of their foals, and yet they have a foal at their side, some may not enter the estrus. The duration lapse associated with rebreeding, and also the length of gestation of a jenny, implies that there will be less than one foal per year for a jenny.

• With this and the prolonged reproductive cycle, as horse breeders frequently do, donkey breeders may not expect to receive a foal every year but will prepare for three foals every four years.

• Donkeys might interbreed and thus are generally interbred with horses along with many other members of the Equidae family. In several countries, the cross between that jack and a mare would be a mule, regarded as a serving as well as riding animal. 

• Few broad donkey breeds were bred for mule production only, including the Baudet de Poitou, Asino di Martina Franca, and the Mammoth Jack. Mules and hinnies, like some other interspecies hybrids, were pretty sterile. Donkeys may also mate with zebras under which a zonkey is named by the offspring (among other names).

Behaviour

Donkeys have quite a legendary reputation for stubbornness, and a much greater sense of identity was already related to it than shown by horses. It is much harder to push or scare a donkey to do everything that he perceives to be risky for some reason, apparently based on a stronger target instinct but a poorer link between humans.

They can be eager and polite partners and very trustworthy at work once an individual has gained their trust and confidence. Although there are very few formal studies of their behaviour and cognition, donkeys seem to be very intelligent, careful, polite, playful, and willing to learn.

Communication: Donkeys interact through braying, a sound often called a "hee-haw." Each donkey does have its own braying style, which could also vary from a "thunderous bray" to a clearly audible one.

Uses of Donkey

Some of the uses of donkeys have been mentioned below:

• For approximately 5000 years, the donkey was being used as a service animal. Of the world's more than 40 million donkeys, approximately 96 percent are in underdeveloped countries, in which they are primarily used in travel or agriculture as pack animals or for draught work. The donkey seems to be the poorest source of agricultural strength, after human labour.

• They could also be installed or used for water-raising, threshing, milling as well as other work. Those residing at or under subsistence levels are frequently associated with working donkeys. Some societies that forbid women from working in agriculture with oxen do not apply this taboo to donkeys, enabling both sexes in using them.

• For meat, several donkeys are milked or bred. Worldwide, roughly 3.5 million donkeys and mules were killed for meat per year. 

• Donkey milk fans also consume it because of its beneficial effects, that go far beyond its nutritional value. In particular, as more of an allergen-friendly as well as immune-boosting food, it has received much interest and popularity.

• The protein within donkey milk seems to have a nearly equal share of casein and whey relative to the protein in cow's milk, which has around five times more casein than whey.

• Approximately 1000 donkeys were killed in the year 2010 in Italy, which has the highest demand for equine meat in Europe and also where donkey meat seems to be the key ingredient of many regional dishes, producing approximately 100 tonnes of meat.

• Asses' milk has great rates: the going value in Italy in 2009 was EUR 15 per litre, and Croatia registered a price of EUR 6 per 100 ml in 2008; it has been used both for cosmetics and soaps and for dietary purposes. Both the milk and meat niche markets are growing.

• Donkey skin was used during the manufacture of parchment in history. In 2017, The Donkey Sanctuary, a UK-based charity, reported that 1.8 million skins were traded annually, however, demand could be as huge as 10 million.

Care

Shoeing: 

• Donkey hooves seem to be more flexible and therefore do not break down as easily as that of the horses. It can require frequent clipping; negligence may lead to irreversible damage. 

• It may be appropriate to shield working donkeys. Donkey footwear is horseshoe-like but typically smaller and with no toe-clips.

Nutrition: 

• Donkeys spend a large proportion of everyday feeding and foraging in their local arid as well as semi-arid climates, mostly on low-quality scrub. 

• The donkey seems to have a strong digestive system wherein hindgut fermentation enables microbial activity in the caecum, and large intestine and leads to effective breaking down of roughage.

• Although there is no major structural distinction between a donkey's gastro-intestinal tract and those of a horse, the donkey's digestion seems to be more active. 

• It requires less food than a horse or pony of equivalent body size, roughly 1.5 percent of total dry body composition per day, relative to a horse's 2-2.5 percent possible intake rate.

• Often, donkeys have become less vulnerable to colic. The explanations for this disparity are not well recognized; the donkey might just have distinct horse intestinal flora or a longer retention period of the intestine.

Donkey Hybrids

• To create a mule, a male donkey (jack) may be mixed with a female horse. To produce a Hinny, a male horse could be mixed with a female donkey (jenny).

• Since horses possess 64 chromosomes, horse-donkey crosses are quite often sterile, while donkeys have 62, making babies with 63 chromosomes. Mules are often more prevalent than Hinnies.

• Jenny's decreased development of progesterone can however contribute to early embryonic failure. Furthermore, there have been factors that are not explicitly connected to reproductive biology. Jacks are also more likely to cover mares because of several mating habits than stallions seem to be to breed jennies.

• In addition, mares are typically bigger than jennies and hence have more room to develop in the uterus for the subsequent foal, due to the greater animal during birth. Mules are far more easily resolved and often bigger and stronger than hinnies, it is generally accepted, making it feasible for breeders to breed.

• Zebroid, zonkey, zebrass, or zedonk are considered the descendants of a zebra-donkey cross; zebra mule seems to be an older term, and yet is utilized nowadays in certain areas. 

• In particular, the above words apply to hybrids created by mating a female donkey with a male zebra. Zebret, Zebra Hinny, and Zebrinny each belong to the cross between a male donkey and a female zebra.

• Zebrinnies are rarer than zedonks because when used to produce full-blooded zebras, female zebras in captivity are most desirable. To save them for hybridization, there are just not sufficient female zebras breeding in captivity; there's really no such restriction on the number of female donkeys breeding.

Donkey Facts

Some of the donkey facts have been mentioned below:-

• As their fur isn't really resistant or waterproof, donkeys wouldn't like it in the rain for extended periods.

• For at least 5,000 years, donkeys are being used as working animals and are now a lifeline among families in regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

• Healthy donkeys are likely to live all through their fifties.

• Donkeys can navigate challenging terrain and are highly nimble.

• Donkeys are quite socially active and create close bonds - inside a herd, you can sometimes see sets of best friends.

• In general physiology, communication, thought and behaviour, donkeys are unique and different from horses - they perform very best with all other donkeys as partners.