Please remember: this is a general guide to help you make informed decisions when navigating the aisles at your local feed store; as always, if you have a question about feeding your specific donkey or are concerned about their health you should speak to a qualified equine veterinarian to tailor a plan specific to your animal. With that being said, let’s get into it!
Concentrates: Concentrates refer to livestock feeds that are rich in energy and/or protein but low in fiber, such as corn, soybean meal, oats, wheat, etc. Concentrated feeds are colloquially referred to in most of the equine world as “grain”. These include pelleted equine feeds like SafeChoice or Strategy, as well as all stock feeds like COB mix or Sweet 10, or simply whole grains like oats or barley.
Forage: Forage refers to plants or plant parts other than separated grains fed to or grazed by domestic animals. Forage may be fresh, dry or ensiled (e.g., pasture, green chop, hay, haylage). Most equines in Arizona receive their daily forage as either hay (cut, dried, and cured), or pasture (actively growing grasses and plants).
Binders: Many processed or pelleted feeds will use “binders” such as molasses to keep the pellets together, and increase palatability (flavor). It is important to look at the ingredients statement on your bag of feed to see what may be used as a binder to ensure you’re not adding unneeded sugars and concentrates to your donkeys’ diet; many grass hay pellets use molasses as a binder, but some do not.
Processing: Animal feeds may be processed in many ways, and for several reasons; usually either as a way to ensure safe storage in order to retain nutrition and prevent spoiling —most often seen in baled hay, or to make a product more easily and efficiently digested, thereby reducing waste. Increasing digestibility is typically done through processes that increase the surface area of a feed, which allows for gut bacteria to break down the feed more quickly. Think of it like this: a piece of sugar rock candy will dissolve in a cup of hot tea much more slowly than granulated sugar. In fact, you’re much more likely to see chunks of sugar still remaining in the bottom of your tea cup, undissolved, if you sweeten your tea with rock sugar rather than granulated sugar. In the same way, one kernel of corn is more quickly digested if ground into cornmeal as opposed to as a whole kernel because cornmeal will have more surface area for bacteria to begin the digestion process. As many of us know, it's not atypical to see whole, unprocessed grains pass through to manure fully undigested.
It is important to understand the various ways feeds can be processed to ensure the safety of your long ears. Types of processing commonly seen in Arizona are:
Hay: herbage, and especially grass, mowed and cured for fodder. We will discuss hay in more detail next week, but most of us are familiar with our dried hay bales from which we feed our donkeys.
Silage/haylage: Feed preserved by anaerobic fermentation. Silage and haylage is most often used for dairy cattle in Arizona, although you may see plastic wrapped bales of haylage marketed toward horses at your local feed store. The fermentation process helps to break down and “pre-digest” some of the plant materials in the feed so the animals may more efficiently digest plant structures such as cellulose.
Rolling or steam flaking: these methods are both designed to make grains more digestible. By rolling them flat with rollers or using steam to soften and split the pericarp (outside shell), you increase the surface area for gut microbes to digest the grains, as well as allow them access to the more digestible inner portions of the grains. You may be familiar with this process when considering rolled oats, like you may use to make oatmeal, versus whole oats.
Grinding: grains and seeds can be ground to increase digestibility. After grinding they may be left as-is such as ground flax, or extruded into a pellet, either on their own, like rice bran pellets, or mixed with other grains and products, such as the above-mentioned SafeChoice and Strategy.
Chopping: hay products may also be chopped to increase digestibility and make for easier storage. You will most often find chopped hay either in plastic wrapped small bales, or extruded into pellets or cubes. Many donkey owners are familiar with alfalfa cubes and grass or alfalfa pellets, which are often used as training treats and rewards.
How do I use this to make a feeding plan?
As donkeys are incredibly efficient with their feed, and most domestic donkeys are more sedentary than their wild relatives have evolved to be, donkey owners generally want to do the opposite of most livestock owners and feed our donkeys as inefficiently as possible. This means minimizing concentrated feeds and heavily processed feeds, like grains and pellets, and seeking out forages with low nutritional density like grasses and straw. Of course the one rule of animal feeding is that not all animals are the same, so while the vast majority of domestic donkeys do best on limited grasses and clean straw for browsing, there will be times your animals may need additional nutrition and/or calories. These instances may include: during times of very cold weather, while pregnant or nursing, while growing, or when being worked heavily. Additionally, some animals may simply have a particularly fast metabolism and require additional feed. In these instances you may choose to ask your vet for feeding guidance to ensure your animal is getting a properly balanced ration for their needs.