6 Things Donkeys Like To Eat Diet, Care & Feeding Tips

The micro-organisms can digest the fibrous part of the food, the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignified parts of the plant material. The donkey has no enzymes of its own to do this, and so particularly on fibrous diets the micro-organisms play a vital part in releasing nutrients for further digestion and absorption from the gut. The micro-organisms grow and Doeat.top Future challenges in animal diets multiply using the available amino-acids in the gut. They also synthesize all the B vitamins and vitamin K2 needed by the donkey. This makes it less prone to harness and saddle sores when working. Good nutrition can reduce the occurrence of disease, reduce the effects of disease on the donkey and help increase the rate of recovery from a disease.

Grazing should always be considered as supplementary to straw, which should make up the majority of a healthy donkey’s diet. Talk to one of our welfare advisers to find out more information about donkey nutrition. There are 25 important amino acids of which 10 are essential amino acids in the diet. They are essential because they cannot be synthesized by the donkey, or the micro-organisms in the hind-gut, in sufficient amounts to meet the donkey’s requirements. There is no system for digesting microbial protein in the large intestine, so the donkey really depends on the protein it eats to supply the amino acids it needs. This is the amino acid most likely to be deficient and inhibit growth if the young donkey is fed only on roughage.

Baby donkeys need supplements that are high in fiber and can be quickly eaten. Access to fresh and clean water is essential for the health of these animals and must be available at all times. To ensure proper development and minimize stress for both the foal and mother, it’s crucial to keep baby donkeys, or foals, with their mothers until they are at least 8 months old.

Hence their energy needs should be provided in a more concentrated form than that available in roughage alone. If distances are difficult to estimate, the hours spent working can be used to help estimate energy requirements. A donkey working for 4 hours a day will usually need about another 50% more energy than if it had not been working. Working for 6 hours a day can mean a doubling in energy requirement and for 8 hours an increase in energy requirement on a working day to 2.5 times that needed for maintenance on a non-working day. This also takes into account some short rest periods during the working day i.e., it assumes the donkey does not spend the whole time moving in the working day.