With regard to adoptions, our work does not stop with the departure of a donkey to a new home. TLS retains certain rights and responsibilities even after the donkeys leave us to make sure they will remain safe and can return to us if that is required. TLS usually retains the right to visit and even repossess donkeys if their adopter is no longer able or willing to properly care for them, and adopters are generally not permitted to transfer possession of their adopted donkeys to a third party without written permission from TLS. Thus, we do not actually 'sell' our donkeys. They are adopted out under a contract that prohibits adopters from rehoming them without our permission. Adoptions are tied to specific individuals and situations.
Donkey returns: Donkeys that are protected by an adoption contract from us can always come back to us and are given priority in terms of available space at our rescue ranch. Donations are appreciated but by no means a requirement for returning a donkey to us.
We require a donkey companion for most donkeys and an equine companion for all donkeys, and we also require sufficient space, sound fencing, and a roofed shelter adequate to protect our donkeys from inclement weather. We conduct home inspections prior to adoption. Our donkeys cannot be used for breeding, slaughter, roping or donkey basketball.
We expect our adopters to provide at least the same level of veterinary care to our donkeys that we have provided to them prior to adoption. Unfortunately, the reality is that not all adopters will meet that expectation down the road. To minimize the occurrence of this, we have recently raised our adoption fees. Our fees now vary from $650 to $800 for a single donkey and $1200 to $2000 for a pair, depending on size/breed, age, fitness, and training status. Please do not try to negotiate down our adoption fees. We use these fees to cover veterinary exams for donkeys going to new homes, vaccinations, and other routine treatments as well as any special rehabilitation costs that the animals incurred when we first took them in. The cost of these procedures alone usually exceed our standard adoption fees. In all cases of a pending adoption, the fee includes recent Coggins, wellness exam, core vaccinations (in fall/winter flu/rhino instead of west nile), dental float if needed, hoof trim, worming, and brand inspection/health certificate if needed. That way, we can make sure our animals have had proper veterinary care just before they leave us, even if (God forbid) adopters later don't follow up with routine veterinary exams. If you ask for special discounts on your adoption fee even though the donkeys you want to adopt have received proper ground training and other routine care and maintenance in preparation for their adoption, then it will make us think that you will likely also want to save money on future veterinary and/or farrier care for them.
We no longer adopt out donkeys as livestock guardians because of numerous reports showing us that many, if not most, donkeys are not suited for such a job. Most of our own former attempts to rehome donkeys as livestock guardians ended in failures sometimes causing the lives of some of the livestock they were supposed to protect. For example, two donkeys were returned to us because they suddenly started killing baby goats. In the second case, the adopter was even warned by us before the adoption that this could happen, and she still exposed her baby goats to the donkeys. And a large number of cattle guardian donkeys were returned to us from a ranch in Quermado because they started chasing the young calves or watched as coyotes were approaching the herd without trying to chase them off. In addition, the donkeys we adopted out as livestock guardians did not do well with the overabundant access to lush pasture and/or alfalfa, with resulted in some of them coming back to us with serious, chronic metabolic problems such as insulin resistance and obesity. Thus, please understand that on behalf of the donkeys in our care, we'll have to say "No" if you ask us whether we have livestock guardians. Usually, we won't even respond to such inquiries since they'll show us that the person inquiring hasn't read up on our adoption policies.
If you think that even after reading all of this, you would make a good adopter for any of the available donkeys or mules we have listed, please move to Available Donkeys. There you can find a downloadable adoption application, generic adoption contract of the kind that we will want to enter into with you, a list of donkeys or mules currently available for adoption, along with their stories, pictures, and description, as well as the Donkey Care Handbook by the Donkey Sanctuary of England, which is another very good resource for information about proper donkey care and management. Of course, we also have our own guide for donkey owners: What Does a New Donkey Owner Need? that you should check out as well. And we encourage you to read the stories of the donkeys currently placed in adoption or long-term foster situations here.