Many of you may have seen on facebook that Dylan had a little operation yesterday to prevent him becoming a dad.
I felt it would be good to let you know why this is always the sensible option to take whether it is a donkey,horse,dog or cat or any other pet.
Most animals will always follow the call of nature and it is their natural instinct to want to mate. The consequences of this are more animals. Now as anyone who had the pleaseure of seeing my foals knows baby animals are really cute; however they GROW UP. Donkeys can easily live over 35 years, so a foal now will still be needing care and attention in 2050... think about how old you would be then.
Having baby animals has loads of unseen costs such as extra food, vet costs and uncalculatable anounts of time in care and training, and those cost continue throughout their lives; often getting more expensive as animals get older. Even if you don't intend to keep your baby animals you need to be able to find homes for them, for someone else to take the costs on. This is extremely hard in the current economic environment and often people take on an animal only to have a change of circumstances and these animals then end up in the animal rescue industry which is already overloaded. Even the best intentioned breeder has no control over what happens to their animals once they leave their care.
Therefore unless you are prepared to take on the offspring of your jack donkey/stallion/dog/cat/etc for life or you are a really experienced breeder with specialist knowledge it is unkind to encourage more young animals into an overloaded system. There are two ways to prevent this ; ISOLATION or CASTRATION. Most animals are sociable so to isolate them from their fellow species can lead to lonely unhappy animals, which will often develop bad habits or behaviours due to unfulfilled sexually urges. The EASY alternative is a simple operation ; castration. This means that there are no risks of accidental breeding; both sex of animal can live happily together in their normal social environment and there is a decreased burden on welfare organisations. It is the kindest option for your male pets and they will be much happy and contented for it.
Here at Dyfi Donkeys we run a no breed policy and strongly encourage you all to think very carefully before you . Remember we only have foals because we rescued two pregnant mums; who were accidently breed due to an oversexed Jack donkey seeking them out. Castration makes mens toes curl but it is always the best option. The biggest myth is that you can make money from breeding; it will always cost you more.
