Real adoption
Take a donkey home
Some of the crew are looking for a place of their own. If you have the ground, the shelter and thirty years of patience, we would like to hear from you.
This is not virtual adoption.
Virtual adoption means you sponsor a donkey's care and follow them from home, and it starts at Donkey Parent Club on Patreon. This page is the other thing: an actual donkey, on your actual land, in your care. Virtual adoption is over here.
Before anything else
Donkeys do not live alone
This is the part that surprises people, so it comes first. A donkey on its own is not a quiet donkey, it is a distressed one. They form close, specific attachments and they mourn.
So they leave here in twos, or they go to a home that already has a donkey for them to join. It is not a preference we are willing to be talked out of, and it doubles the hay bill, which is worth knowing now rather than later.
What it takes
What a donkey needs from you
None of this is meant to put you off. It is here because the wrong home is harder on a donkey than no home at all, and because everything below is easier to sort out before they arrive.
They leave in pairs
Donkeys bond for life and grieve hard when they are split up. We rehome companions together, or to a home that already has a donkey. A donkey kept alone is a donkey in trouble, and a horse or a goat is not a substitute.
Dry ground and real shelter
Donkeys come from deserts. Their coats are not waterproof and their feet rot in standing mud, so they need a dry shelter they can take themselves into whenever they like, and ground that drains.
Space, and fencing that holds
Room to move and graze, fenced well enough to keep them in and dogs out. Donkeys are cleverer than the fence usually is, and they test it.
A farrier every six to ten weeks
Hooves keep growing whether or not anyone trims them. This is the single commitment people underestimate, and overgrown feet cause lasting damage.
A diet poorer than you would guess
Rich pasture and sweet feed give donkeys laminitis and obesity. Most do best on coarse hay, restricted grazing and a mineral balancer. A vet who knows donkeys specifically is worth finding before you need one.
Decades, not years
A donkey can live thirty to forty years. Adopting one is closer to taking on a horse than a dog, and it will outlast most other plans you make this decade.
The process
How it works
It moves at the speed of getting it right rather than the speed of paperwork. Expect weeks, not days.
- 1Write to usTell us about your place: land, shelter, fencing, other animals, and whether you have kept equines before. No form to fill in, just an email to a person.
- 2We talk it throughA proper conversation about what you can offer and which of the herd might suit it. This is also where you ask us the awkward questions.
- 3We see the placeA visit, or photos and a video call if you are further out. We are looking at shelter, footing and fencing, not at your housekeeping.
- 4You meet themCome and spend time with the pair we have in mind. Donkeys have opinions about people, and it is worth knowing theirs before anything is decided.
- 5They go home, and we stay in touchWe help with the move and stay reachable afterwards. If it ever stops working, they come back to us rather than going on to a stranger.
If it is not the right match
We will tell you, and it will not be a judgement on you. Some of these donkeys are old, some are blind, some are frightened of men in hats for reasons we can only guess at. Matching them well is the whole job. If a home is not right for the pair we had in mind, it may be right for another, and if it is not right for any of them we would rather say so than find out later.
- No experience with equines is not a disqualification. Unwillingness to learn is.
- Renting is not a disqualification either, as long as the landowner is on board.
- They can always come back to us. That is a promise, not a formality.
Start here
Tell us about your place
One email to a real person. Land, shelter, fencing, other animals, and anything you are unsure about. We answer every one, including the ones that turn out to be a no.
Not ready for a donkey in the field? Virtual adoption supports their care from wherever you are.