How do guard donkeys protect a flock?
Donkeys have been used for centuries to protect sheep and other herding animals. Donkeys are extremely intelligent, with acute hearing (there is a reason for those big ears) and sight, and they are conservative by nature: they do not like change in their surroundings, and will drive off a coyote or stray dog as much because it is an intruder as from any instinctive dislike of canines. At Maple Lawn Farm, our flock of Cotswold sheep was guarded for 10 years by Rosie, a donkey who came to our farm with no experience of sheep. She was four years old and had never seen a sheep before coming to the farm. Once here, Rosie quickly established a routine. Whenever the flock was rotated to a new pasture, Rosie insisted on conducting a perimeter check; she ran at top speed around the inside of the walls of the pasture (we were in Southeast Connecticut, with stone-walled pastures), before finally braying her All Clear. When a coyote snuck into a pasture, Rosie had a rehearsed battle plan.
