3 Activities to improve mental stimulation
With the arrival of summer, the grass is getting scarce, making it very likely that your donkey will get bored and need a bit of extra mental stimulation.
Now that days are longer and the holidays are here, there is no excuse: here are 3 activities to spend quality time with your donkey and improve their mental stimulation:
1 – CHANGE OF SCENE
Description of activity
Making simple changes to the environment in order to cause your donkeys to have to think and prevent routine boredom setting in.
Purpose of activity
To change a donkey's environment in small ways that can cause the donkey to think, move or be mentally stimulated by these changes.
No. Of donkeys enriched
Whole herd.
Requirement and ingredients for activity
Make small changes to the donkey's environment such as; providing additional water buckets or moving the sources of water, closing gates and opening others to enable donkeys to find different routes or paths to their pasture or shelter. Change the location for your normal grooming or handling sessions. Make changes to where you feed your donkeys and even where you provide normal enrichment activities, such as logs, toys etc.
Other considerations or changes and adaptions
There are as many adaptions to the environment and the donkey's normal routine as you can make, it is a matter of sitting down with your resource mapping exercise, which can be found on the environment enrichment document, and planning how changes can be made.
Health and safety considerations
Ensure the donkeys cannot get trapped or stuck by any changes in their environment. Water buckets need to be securely fastened, placed inside rubber tyres to prevent them from being tipped over, and new entrances to gateways should be safe without any sharp objects or chances of donkeys catching themselves. Be particularly vigilant to ensure that bonded donkeys aren't separated.
Outcome
Regularly changing small elements of the environment more naturally simulates what the donkey would experience in the wild, provides thoughtful processes throughout the day and can lead to a rota of changes so the donkey's environment is continually changing.
2 – DONKEY AGILITY
Description of activity
Working with your donkey to overcome obstacles and travel around obstacle course, much like dog agility.
Purpose of activity
To increase mental stimulation, build confidence, exercise and develop the relationship between donkey and human.
No. Of donkeys enriched
One or two at a time.
Requirement and ingredients for activity
Research on the internet for horse/donkey agility or dog agility and begin to build a variety of obstacles for you donkey to encounter. Initially these can be very simple, such as a tarpaulin on the ground, traffic cones and bunting, with some research these can become more sophisticated and added together to create a variety of different obstacles with increasing difficulty that the donkeys can encounter.
Introduce your donkey slowly to these type of obstacles. You may start with a simple lead rope on the ground or a broom handle, this can gradually be built up over time to more complex challenges although the donkeys should never be forced to deal with an obstacle, it should always be through the use of positive reinforcement to engage the donkey's abilities to learn.
Other considerations or changes and adaptions
The only limit is your imagination.
Health and safety considerations
Ensure that obstacles are safe, unlikely to move and strong enough to support the donkey if they are going to stand on them. Ensure that they are not going to pose a threat if left with a donkey for any period, i.e. that the donkey cannot chew or eat the obstacle and that the obstacle does not move during training which will scare the donkey. Ensure there are no sharp edges, nails or points that are likely to injure the donkey.
Outcome
During this work, donkeys learn to be more trusting and deal with challenges in a greater way. They also develop a relationship with the handler and all donkeys benefit from this exercise with the handler.
3 – TUG OF WAR
Description of activity
Young donkeys often enjoy playing, carrying and fighting over toys, this activity allows for provision of that.
Purpose of activity
Mental stimulation, physical and social interaction.
No. Of donkeys enriched
Two or four.
Requirement and ingredients for activity
Donkey safe toys such as rubber tyres buckets, safe dog toys, water hosepipe, use donkey collar material, wellington boots, and leather footballs.
Have a number of toys that can be rotated to provide novel stimulation rather than just one or two toys that become boring and used all the time. Keep the toys clean and change them on a regular basis.
Other considerations or changes and adaptions
There are horse toys and balls available that are suitable for donkeys, try to buy soft rubber ones rather than hard plastic moulded ones.
Health and safety considerations
Ensure all toys are safe and there are no sharp edges. Ensure that the donkeys are unable to eat and consume any part of the toy.
Outcome
Young donkeys, especially males, often enjoy this behaviour most engaging in it more often and therefore get more mental and physical exercise.
You can do these activities all year round, even if it is not summer, your donkey will love them for sure!