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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Ok, so leaving Jack intact is an option that might produce a mule or
another donkey in the future should I find the right person to trade
with.  OTOH, he could be aggressive to baby animals that he is supposed
to guard.

At 28, is he too old to castrate-health problems with gelding at this
age?- and would anyone really advise this over the possibility of
getting a mule out of him?

My friend has dogs.  One of her dogs is a rat terrier, the others are
labs( one just died so now there is only one lab)  Dixie, the rat
terrier, is always around Jack, and Jack ignores her as if she wasn't
there.  Like I say, I have only seen Jack react when he was being picked
on by the horses.

I really wouldn't want to geld him, but I suppose I may have to do so.
Marie has weighed in with this and agrees with the experts that you
should not use an intact donkey as a guardian, but I still hold out hope
that I would not need to cut him, so I'd really like to hear from
everyone on this...
BTW, just so I don't pass out, about how much does it cost to cut a donkey?

Just so everyone knows, I am seriously putting the cart before the
donkey here...Jack belongs to my friend and we haven't discussed his
ownership recently. I've just fallen in love with him and now that I am
learning more about them, the fit is getting better.



Marie McHarry wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 12:37 AM, Lynda <lurine AT com-pair.net> wrote:
> > I've never had an intact male donkey or horse bother the babies.
> > The weanlings, sometimes, but the babies never.  The only problem I
> > ever had with an intact male anything was a Suffolk ram (I do NOT
> > like Suffolk, btw <g>) and he would head butt the horses to get to
> > their feed.  He stopped when an old gelding picked him up and
> > tossed him.
> .> Each donkey is different, but I can give you horror stories out
> the wazoo of intact males who killed small things. We had a sad case
> of a litter of kittens stomped to death (okay, no one saw it, but
> even tomcats don't stomp as was done to those kittens).
>
> People have kept a male with the herd for years, and then had the
> jack get a wild hare and kill all the kids. The intact jacks I have
> known were more or less out of control until their respective
> ballectomies. The jack that Bev has her eye on sounds like a sweetie,
> and he may well be. Plus, he's an old guy, and age mellows us all
> (for the most part).
>
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"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt  should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt.  People must again learn to work, instead of
living on public assistance."

--Cicero, 55 BC
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