Ears Wide Open and Mouth Shut - Roping Donkeys

I have read a lot on the blogs about the abuse of donkeys used by ropers for roping practice.

I had never been around the practice before, but the stories I read made me pretty much agree it is a horrible thing to do.


Here are some excerpts from some of the reading I had done.




" I’ve personally witnessed donkeys who were victims of roping abuse

who came to my ranch for gentling and training.   Unfortunately once again, there’s no easy “fix” from this abuse.   Although the donkey is removed from the environment which it lived in pure fear and pain,the memories will live forever in their hearts and mind.

 A huge surplus of standard donkeys in Texas and nearby states has led

to inexpensive donkeys used for practice roping.   For a mere $10.00 per donkey at many livestock auctions, some cowboys can’t seem to resist cheap donkeys to practice their roping skills on.  Once the donkey is so highly abused to the point it hunkers down in the practice pen, the donkeys are  returned

to the auction yard waiting for the next cowboy to bid on them.  And the abuse continues.   

 In some cases, ranchers don’t even bother to haul the spent donkeys back to the auction yards. Many simply drive a trailer load of donkeys to a remote location in Texas and turn them loose to fend for themselves."

   l“Horse-riding ropers used Giuseppe to practice roping. They're called either 'headers' or 'heelers,' which means they use the donkeys to practice roping cows, either their back feet or the head. Most of the donkeys used this way are crippled for life, especially if they’re laid down and stretched out. You can easily break the animal’s back,” she told me."

 One afternoon I saw a couple of donkeys in the holding pens behind the cattle chutes. 

 Uh oh. I do board my horses at a roping training facility. It looked like I was going to see firsthand the mistreatment of roping burros.

Here's what I witnessed.

There were four burros. All of them were intact jacks. Their feet were incredibly long and they were wild as Mach hares. They were extremely thin. 

The burros spent a month eating. They were roped, thrown, wormed, inoculated and had their feet done.Then they were left to eat until they had some fat on their ribs.

Once they were healthy they began training. the entire process took less than a week. The burros were herded into the arena one by one and taught to lope a large circle. This was done by having the ropers drive them in the circle them at the hip and whack them with their ropes when they tried to go off circle.

Was this nice? Well, no. Were they hurt? Nope. No rope burns, no broken legs, just driven in a circle. It didn't take the jacks long to sort things out, they are pretty darn smart.

One jack was aggressive and willing to bite. He was kicked back to the pen and not used anymore.

The next phase of the training was to rope them.

The burros were roped around the head. They were drug around until they stopped and faced the rope horse. Then they were given slack. This was a very short lesson. The burros knew to stop and face the ropers within 15 or twenty minutes.

Next the hind feet were roped, one at a time. The jacks kicked and squalled, the second they stopped they were given slack. They were not thrown. They learned to stop when their hind legs were roped even faster than they learned to face off the rope horse.

The aggressive jack went to the sale barn.

The other three spent the summer teaching colts to track, get in position and the basics of roping. Because the donkeys stopped as soon as they were roped the colts learned they could control them without having to feel much pull from the rope.

I did notice one of the Jacks got his legs scurfed up. He was put away until he healed. There wasn't any scarring, no broken bones and he healed clean legged.

By the end of the summer the burros wouldn't play anymore. So they were halter broke, then saddle broke, taught to tie, have their feet done etc.

Then they went to the sale and sold as saddle broke. They had been bought for between $5 and $25 dollars and sold for between $150 and $200.

Here's a few interesting facts I learned while I was watching all this.

BLM burros are diverted to other states and sold at public auctions by the hundreds. I'm not saying the BLM is doing this, but I don't know who else has truckloads of unwanted burros handy.

If you halter break a burro before you rope break it, it won't work. They have to be taught to be driven instead of led first.

The roping burros were very good with their feet and not spooky.

They were broke enough to periodically be tied to the cars of various people in town, all of them victims of the odd sense of humor of my barn owner. The burros were gentle and friendly enough to be led back by the very non-donkey savvy victims. 

I'm having trouble considering this practice barbaric. It seems to me, these ropers give the burros a rare chance to have a life beyond the holding pens of the BLM.