Corsicana —
Earlier this month, Navarro County shipped off a load of 12 donkeys and two Asian Wild Asses to a rescue group near San Angelo.
The Asian Wild Asses were kept by the county for several months, on the theory that the animals’ owners would eventually show back up, but the donkeys are an old, sad story of abandonment that’s becoming a state-wide issue.
Stray donkeys are found almost every week in the county, and so many of them are being abandoned that many livestock auction houses will no longer accept them for sale.
“We average one a week,” said Kipp Thomas, Navarro County deputy sheriff. “There’s no money to feed them, they’re worth nothing, so they’re turned loose like stray dogs.”
Sometimes, the donkeys are the result of absentee land owners trying to obtain agriculture exemptions on their land, said Sheriff Les Cotten.
“Most of them are out-of-towners. They’ll buy 10 or 15 acres of land, and in order to qualify for the ag exemption they’ll put four or five donkeys on it,” Cotten explained. “Then, they’ll go back to Dallas or wherever and forget they’ve got anything out there.”
The neglected animals will escape their pastures in seek of food or water or companionship and end up in the roads, which is how they come to the attention of the sheriff’s department.
The costs to the county include having a cowboy round up the animals, placing an estray ad in the newspaper, keeping the animal for however long, and then performing a Coggins test, to determine if it has Equine Infectious Anemia. If it’s a horse or cow being rounded up, the department has a chance of getting some of the county’s money back by selling the animal in auction.
“We’ll invest $50 to $100 in a horse and maybe get back $30 for them, but nobody will buy donkeys,” Cotten said.
Local auctioneers confirmed that donkeys don’t sell.
“Not all the barns will accept them anymore,” said Amanda Perkins, office manager for the Hubbard Livestock Auctions. “We only get them from the sheriff’s department. We sell them, but most of the time the county has to pay for it. They might bring $5, if that. They’re not worth much. We try to deter people from bringing them in because they’re going to end up owing us anywhere from $25 to $50.”
Because there’s such a flood of donkeys on the market, Navarro County has stopped trying to sell them, and instead turned to the Texas Burro Rescue Division of the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue group.
Deputy Sheriff Charles Paul estimates Navarro County has sent the group about 50 donkeys this year, including those two Asian Wild Asses.
Peaceful Valley has rescue operations in 27 states in the U.S., and Texas leads the nation by far in the size and scope of the donkey problems, said Mark Meyers, executive director for Peaceful Valley.
In the first six months of 2011, Peaceful Valley has taken in 300 donkeys in Texas, and is working the cases of another 100.
“And it’s all abandonment,” Meyers said. “We’ve had abandonment cases all along, but with the drought, it’s just skyrocketed. The main reason is donkeys have no value. In most cases, they won’t even let you unload them at an auction. You can usually give away the jennets (female donkeys), but you have no chance of getting rid of a jack.”
The rescue group picks up the animals, castrates the males, and microchips each donkey before trying to adopt them out to families. Those that are too wild or that have health issues will either go to the two main facilities in Miles, Texas, or in California, or to grazing land that the rescue group maintains.
“We came to Texas in 2008 to help with the Big Bend problem of them shooting wild donkeys, and we had no idea what we were getting into,” Meyers said. “We were on Texas Country Reporter early on, and our phone has rung off the hook ever since.”
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Janet Jacobs may be reached via e-mail at jacobs@corsicanadailysun.com. Want to “sound off” to this article? E-mail: Soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com
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Courtesy photo Mark and Amy Meyers started the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue as a backyard hobby over a decade ago. They've recently taken in some abandoned donkeys from Navarro County
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Abandoned donkeys a problem in county
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