Donkey Breaking

(angel) Has anybody had good luck with using donkies for breaking steers? Let me know and thanks alot!!!!

Rod Furrow keeps a donkey for just that purpose... he catches the calves several days in a row and halters them and teaches them to stand tied to the fence,, he has a harness on the donkey and ties the calf to the harness.. he says the donkey can get "worn out" I think skin wise under the harness if used to much for to many calves
there has been a recent thread on this forum about donkeys

All I know is that they can be a little agressive like biting calves and stuff. Just my 2 cents

We use them to break the ones we can't get.  They do an excellent job.  Our donkey has never bit any of the calves and if you have them hooked up right they can't kick them either, but they are stubborn enough to make them go where they wan't and break anything we have ever had here.

We bought a breaking donkey at a club calf sale a couple of months ago and next weekend I am going to see how it works. I have one steer calf that is pain in the butt. I will let you know how it goes. Our donkey is super gentle so I will find out how is with the calf soon.

How long do you leave them tied up together?? Thanks (angel)

We leave ours a couple hours at a time

Olsun, on this board would have as much first hand experience on this board as anyone that I personally know about Donkeys or mules. Has been around  a lot of them over the years and traded a couple. If you PM him, I'm sure that you could learn a lot from him as what to look for and do or what not to do. Brent

We have three donkeys that have all been used for halter breaking... two mammoths and one standard. All are Jennys. They all work good but the smaller standard is by far the best one. I have no idea how she does it, but she can take all the fight out of any animal after two hours of being tied up... and she hardly does anything. She usually just stands in one place and if she decides she wants to go anywhere, she simply starts walking in circles, each time around getting a little closer to the hay or water or wherever she wants to go.  Two years ago I had a 1300 lb bred heifer who had never had a rope on her before. I haltered her and tied her up in the barn. She was flipping herself over and smashing her head and had blood running out of her nose. I was afraid to leave her tied up as I thought she was going to hang herself or hurt herself badly. I was wanting to go cut some hay so I knew I either had to turn her lose or tie her to Elizabeth  and turn her out in a pen. I decided to try the donkey and tied her to her and went to the hay field. Two hours later I came in for lunch. They were standing exactly where I had left them. I was going to try to lead Elizabeth into the barn so that I could untie the heifer, and she refused to move, so I decided to untie the heifer and see if she was going to take off on me. I untied her and lead her into the barn... she never even stopped once and hardly tightened the rope. She was good from that time on, and after combing her a couple times, you could do anything with her.

In the late summer, the donkey is invaluable. I usually have 15 - 20 head to get halter broke for sales and shows. Elizabeth allows me to do some other jobs while she is on halter breaking detail. The other two Mammoths are also OK but they are a little rougher on the calves.

Are jennys better than a jack or are they the same? Thanks to all!!!

The one we use is a Jenny

Thanks  I hope everything will be good for us that this is our first time to do this. Thanks to everyone for the help.  Hope to see you SP people at the OH expo  will be cooking burgers for those jugding kids on Sat. morning so stop by and say high.

Nearly all donkeys are capable of breaking calves to lead. Some are just better than others. Size seems to have little to do with ability, but the ones from 46 to 50 inches tall are the easiest to find, and cheapest to buy. Jenniys or gelded jacks seem to satisfy more people because they are more even dispositioned than intact jacks, thus less aggressive and less apt to bite your calf. If you do get one that bites a lot, it is easiest to just replace it with another donkey.I hope this helps some. Earl

We used mules for 20 years to halter break bulls, used to halter break around 30 a year.  We'd stall tie them for 2 days then put them on the mule, usually about 5 hours a day for 1-3 days depending on attitude, we only ever had one that wouldn't halter break.  We also tried a donkey a couple times and felt they didn't do as good a job.  Our opinion was that the donkeys were to content to just stand there in one spot with them, where as the mules would move around a little more.
The best mule we ever used was one that had been broke to drive, he stood about 50 inches and weighed probably 600lbs. but he new how to work that harness to his advantage and could drag around anything we tied him to.  Even broke a couple two year old bulls with him.

eskie said:

Are jennys better than a jack or are they the same? Thanks to all!!!

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Just my experience....don't use a jack!  We had some serious problems with a couple of Jacks!  I was going to give one a case of Lead Poisoning but my Grandfather stopped me.  In retrospect, it is good to have a level head around when mine is not but I will never have another Jack on the farm.

Thanks to all for the info!!!