The domestic donkey is an unique equid species whose ancestor, the African Wild Ass (Equus africanus), evolved to survive in semi-arid, often mountainous environments, with steep terrain, sparse food sources, intermittent access to water and widely fluctuating temperatures.
What do donkeys eat?
Donkeys learnt to thrive in this environment, maximising food quality over quantity using a selective feeding strategy and evolving to be browsers (eating woody shrubs and trees) as well as grazers (eating grasses and other low vegetation), says Nikki Bell, Senior Researcher (Nutrition & Care) at The Donkey Sanctuary.
What do donkeys eat in the wild?
In their natural environment donkeys would typically spend up to 18 hours a day foraging on low nutritional quality, fibrous plant matter, whilst travelling distances of up to 30 km each day.
Replicating the natural, fibre rich diet of the wild donkey and providing sufficient opportunities for exercise can often be a challenge for owners of domesticated donkeys, particularly when they are kept purely as companions.
What should we feed domesticated donkeys?
Trying to satisfy the donkeys natural appetite without oversupplying energy (calories) can often be difficult, especially when they are mistakenly fed as if they are ‘a small horse with big ears’ and their unique nutritional needs are not considered.
Donkeys have considerably lower daily energy requirements than horses and traditional sources of roughage such as grass or grass based preserved forages (e.g. hay or haylage) will usually result in excessive weight gain if fed to donkeys as their main food source.
For healthy donkeys with good dental function, cereal straws (the stalks remaining after the grain has been harvested) often tend to be a more appropriate source of energy and dietary fibre.
Straw can normally account for at least 50 - 75% of a donkey’s diet for much of the year. The remainder of the diet will usually be made up from appropriate access to grazing or by giving small amounts of high fibre, low sugar hay or haylage.
Allowing donkeys opportunities to browse is also important, whether that be via access to trees or hedging growing naturally within their outdoor environment, or from the provision of cut branches or logs.
What shouldn't donkeys eat?
Donkeys should only be allowed access to known safe sources of browse. Certain trees, shrubs and plants carry a risk of toxicity which could result in serious consequences, even death, if eaten.
Grass cuttings can also pose a serious, potentially fatal risk to donkeys so should always be disposed of safely, away from areas where donkeys could gain access.
Supplementary feeds will rarely be needed unless donkeys have health or dental problems, or they are struggling to maintain or gain weight. In such cases equine specific products should be sought.
Decisions around the type and amount of food given to donkeys will usually be tailored around their body condition and their health and dental status. Certain forages and feeds might be fine for some donkeys but a potential risk of causing serious health issues, such as choke, colic (abdominal pain) or laminitis (an extremely painful condition of the hooves) for others.
Sudden dietary changes (whether in the type or amount of food offered) can also increase the risk of serious problems within the donkey's gastrointestinal tract.
For these reasons we would strongly urge people not to feed anything to any equid they come across (whether that be a donkey, horse, pony or hybrid, like a mule) if they are not the owner or where the owner has not given consent.
Whilst there may be no malicious intent, incidents have still arisen where equids have been left extremely ill or in some cases died due to public feeding.
Further information on feeding donkeys visit The Donkey Sanctuary.
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