Here are a few suggestions for you as you are considering contacting us to adopt a donkey:
- We do not send out single donkeys to a home that does not already have a donkey or at least a horse. Even a horse or several horses will often not be enough to satisfy a donkey's need for companionship. Horses are behaviorally different by nature, and we often observe donkeys to remain lonely and/or bored - or worse, be picked on - in a herd of horses. Goats often do not make good companions for donkeys, either. Two of our past adopters returned donkeys to us that were given access to baby goats; sadly, in each case, one of the donkeys had killed a baby. This happens a lot, and you can get more information from goat breeders or others who have tried out donkeys as guardian animals or heard about such endeavors, or from the Donkey Sanctuary of England: www.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/sites/uk/files/2020-04/keeping-donkeys-with-other-animals-factsheet-march-2020.pdf
With this in mind, if you don't already have a donkey at home, we will ask you to adopt a pair.
- Also for the above reasons, we no longer adopt out donkeys as guardian animals, be it for goats, cattle, sheep or chickens. Many donkeys used to guard cattle have been seen chasing young calves around rather than actually protecting them. Donkeys have been reported watching their chicken being carried away by coyotes without bothering to interfere. And as mentioned above, donkeys can kill goats or sheep, especially smaller ones.
- We rarely have mini donkeys or mammoth donkeys larger than 14hh for adoption. If you don't see one listed here, we don't have one for adoption.
- Our donkeys are adopted out under a contract by which we intend to protect them in the long run. The contract gives both parties rights and obligations. The contract prohibits breeding as well as selling or otherwise passing on the adopted donkeys to another home or another person without our permission. It also requires you to return the donkeys to us or seek our written permission for a follow-up adoption of your choice in case you can no longer take care of them. If you are not willing to sign or abide by such a contract for the protection of the donkeys, then adoption is not for you.
- Donkeys require care and attention, and their proper maintenance does cost some money. If you cannot afford hay (hoping that you can let them graze off the ground in your yard or pasture instead), you should not adopt a donkey. Not only did we get donkeys returned whose adopters were mistaken in believing that what grows on their property can feed the animals properly, but at times the grass and weeds on a pasture - even in New Mexico - can become too rich in sugars and cause laminitis in donkeys. During such times, the donkeys need to be removed from pasture and kept in a dry lot most of the day. If you cannot provide this, then you should rethink your decision to adopt donkeys. The same goes if you cannot provide routine preventative vet care or vet care in an emergency.
- We conduct home inspections prior to adoption. We require sturdy and safe fencing (preferably no barbed wire), a sturdy, roofed shelter with at least 3 sides or a barn, usually at least an acre of pasture for 2 donkeys and, in addition, a smaller dry lot (or nearly dry lot) for training, vet care, farrier care or just to park the donkeys if they develop laminitis from too much pasture access or need to be separated temporarily. We will work with future adopters who still need to develop their facilities prior to the arrival of the donkeys. We expect adopters to continue providing at least the same quality of veterinary care for routine and emergency procedures that we have afforded their donkeys prior to adoption.
- Are you sure you are ready for the responsibility of owning donkeys for as long as you can? That involves having the facility you currently have for an indefinite time or being able to replace it with an equally or better suitable one if it is no longer available at some point. It means being able to cover feed, veterinary care, and farrier care for an indefinite time. In the Southwest of the USA, hay is expensive. Veterinary care is expensive, and we'll expect you to get your adopted donkeys vet checked not just in emergencies. Contact us for a breakdown of the costs, and think carefully about whether you can make the commitment. We will always take our donkeys back if need be, but for older animals, for example, it is increasingly a hardship to see their herds broken up and themselves moved from one home to another.
- 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 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 $1,000 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.
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.