Wednesday, July 07, 1999
Donkeys captivate with charm
Family breeds gentle pack
BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Martha Howard pets and talks to one of the recent additions to the family's donkey farm in Deerfield Township.
(Dick Swaim photo)
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DEERFIELD TOWNSHIP — The goat and the peacock didn't work out and llamas just weren't their style. So the Howards tried another pet: donkeys.
But these long-earred furry friends are more than just pets. These jacks and jennets have a job to do. The male and female donkeys are here to reproduce.
Nestled amid tracts of plowing bulldozers and sprouting subdivisions, Martha Howard and her husband, Dowell, stubbornly maintain a bucolic oasis of breeding burros.
Bucking the stereotype about the moody and mulish beast, the Howards chose to place donkeys on their 16-acre farm about five years ago because of the animals' charming personality.
“They are the ultimate warm and fuzzy,” Mrs. Howard says. “I like the friendliness of the donkeys. ... They are naturally very affectionate animals.”
As she talks, some of the miniature Mediterranean donkeys crowd the wooden fence. They stick their long snouts through the planks, vying for a rub on their velvety noses or maybe to nibble on a pair of pants.
“My daughter wants me to buy her a car and she's frustrated because we've been buying donkeys,” Mrs. Howard says of the youngest of their three children, 15-year-old Alta.
Mrs. Howard and her husband, an engineer with Procter & Gamble, started out with nine of the 3-foot-tall donkeys shortly after they bought the farm in 1993. The donkeys came from a retiring farmer near Springfield. Now the family owns and breeds 20 jennets, or female donkeys, and two jacks, or males. Another male will be ready for breeding next year while a fourth is neutered. About every year the Howards sell a few offspring to farmers and petting zoos throughout Ohio. There is no local market for donkeys, Mrs. Howard says.
A young jack can sell for about $500, while a jennet can sell for $1,000.
The goal, she says, is to breed donkeys with pleasant temperaments that will strengthen the species and become sturdy draft animals. However, miniature donkeys usually aren't used in the United States to pull heavy loads. Instead, owners work them as guard animals to protect sheep from coyotes, or keep them as pets, she says.
Some are actresses. One of the Howards' donkeys, dubbed Hillary Clinton, had a bit part in a local church Christmas pageant lastyear.
Most of the Howards' donkeys sport the names of famous people and aviators. Then there's Harry, Mrs. Howard's favorite.
Harry is one of two sires with a paddock to himself. Adult males are kept in their own enclosure to avoid fights with other males, who are territorial. Jennets are placed in a jack's paddock when they are in heat, which occurs every three to six weeks. Gestation lasts 11 to 13 months.
“Harry knows he's a stud,” Mrs. Howard says as Harry pushes against the fence between him and another male, 1-year-old, Doby. Doby will be ready for breeding next year. “He wants to chase this whippersnapper,” she says about Harry.
For now, Doby lives in a field with Martin, a 5-year-old neutered male, a placid son of Harry.
“They can't all have a life as a stud,” Mrs. Howard says. “One jack can serve all these females,” she adds pointing to about 12 jennets, some rolling around in the grass and dirt to keep the flies away.
Even though bulldozers busily push dirt for new subdivisions a short distance from her home on Bethany Road, Mrs. Howard finds peace outdoors working with the donkeys.
“They're always happy to see you,” she says, even when she's not carrying hay treats.
Despite the change around them, the Howards have no plans to sell the farm.
“They are going to have to take us out of here feet first.”
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