For 11 years Alyce Crompton owned and bred miniature pigs — and it was going well by all accounts, with a year-long waiting list and strict vetting process.
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However, one fateful day three years ago, Cohuna mother Alyce picked up a Country Style magazine.
The front cover of the Christmas 2017 issue featured a brown miniature donkey and a wallaby under a Christmas tree with tall eucalyptus bush in the background.
“I’d never really had that big of an interest or knowledge about donkeys before I saw them in the Country Style magazine,” Alyce said.
“I contacted the breeder on the cover. I just thought they looked awesome.”
Little did the pigs know, their days as farm stars were now numbered.
Alyce purchased her first miniature donkey seven months later.
The donkey’s name was Juliette and she came with a tag-a-long foal.
“I had been breeding miniature pigs for 11 years and I just thought ‘these look pretty cool too’.”
Mini-donkeys typically stand 76 cm to 80 cm tall and originate from the island of Sardinia, Sicily, where they were valuable mill workers.
Like many things, the tiny animals experienced a complete 180-degree in purpose once the United States imported them in the 1930s and 1950s.
Labelled ‘Miniature Mediterranean Donkeys’ they began to be bred for pleasure and style.
Straight from the jump, Alyce’s plan had always been to expand into a mini-donkey stud.
“I definitely wanted to grow,” she said.
“It’s just been a long process.”
Last month Juliette gave birth to a grey-dun jenny foal named Leveret.
“This will be her last foal,” Alyce said.
“She’s getting a bit old now — she’s 20.”
On average mini-donkeys live up to 25 years and their full-size counterparts can reach 40 years.
All that lifespan also has a downside — donkeys have one of the longest gestation periods seen in a domestic animal, tapping out at 12 months in utero and delivering a single foal.
It’s a big change from miniature pigs who farrow at four months, delivering upwards of five piglets at once.
It puts the words “long process” in perspective.
From Juliette, Alyce has expanded out to a nine-donkey operation, looking after seven jennies and two jacks.
“Next year I hope to have five foals, this year I had four,” Alyce said.
“Three of the girls still had some growing to do.”
Mini-donkeys are bought as pets and paddock ornaments — their manageable size, impressive colours and low feed requirements making them some of the best hobby livestock available.
“They are something to look at in the paddock basically and they are really affectionate, so we have quite a few people who’ve gotten them as therapy animals,” Alyce said.
“I haven’t had many foals, but pretty well all of my foals have gone to people who have our pigs.”
The miniature livestock enthusiast world is a small one.
Typically the mini-donkeys are sold at six months of age after being weaned.
Males are rarely sold as intact jacks, instead leaving the stud as geldings for $2500 to $3000.
“When we sell jacks they are gelded because it makes them significantly cheaper,” Alyce said.
“You can get two geldings for the price of one jenny.”
Jennies sell for a minimum of $6500.
Currently Alyce’s buyers are hobby farmers and repeat customers who trust her breeding programs.
“You’ll get the odd person looking to breed in the future but because I’m not a big stud breeder most of my customers are more hobbyist”
Often the donkeys are sold in pairs.
“You need two, you can’t have one by themselves, they fret by themselves.
“Most breeders, if they are a good breeder, won’t sell a donkey by itself. They will either sell two together or find another one from another breeder to go with it, unless someone already has a couple.”
Conditions at the donkey’s new home need to be just right as well.
“If they are in a lush green area where people like everything to be nice it’s not ideal.
“It’s fine if the green is a wild bush grass but if it's clover or lucerne it's just too much for them.”
Alyce keeps her own donkeys in paddocks along the driveway — a run of low, brown grass among irrigated fields.
“It’s a small area where I’m allowed for it to not be green. No one is allowed to water it.
“They can’t have green … it has to be dry or they get too fat.”
Alyce said the donkeys needed to find homes in drier areas or go to homes where the owners were able to restrict their feed by keeping them with sheep or alpacas.
Keeping them in pens or stables was not an option.
“They are so smart and they are busy, so you can’t keep them in a small area to restrict the feed because they get bored,” Alyce said.
“Those are the biggest things for me when someone inquires — a suitable set-up where they can restrict their feed, or on a drier ground, and they have to have two.”
Superstars on the Cohuna silage farm include the two jacks: Zeke and Amber Jack.
Amber Jack is a colourful small jack, immediately making him incredibly sought-after in the size and coat colour-focused mini-donkey world.
Zeke on the other hand is a black jack.
Known as Malakai Zheveko, the jack was conceived in the US and born in Ballarat, making him a valuable addition to the Australian gene pool.
“His mum Cover Girl was imported while pregnant with him and he’s of really good, recent imported blood,” Alyce said.
Zeke also carries the prestige of being a micro-mini donkey — a donkey under 30 inches (76 cm) in height.
“Some breeders are all about getting micros,” Alyce said.
“For me it’s not all about size. You definitely don’t want them big but confirmation is a big thing — nice stocky body, broad in the chest and a nice head.”
Nearly all of Alyce’s donkeys come from the same Ballarat breeder that imported Zeke, known as Malakai Alpaca and Miniature Donkeys.
“Shane Carey (Malakai stud owner) has been a big help,” Alyce said.
Going forward the goal for the Cohuna stud is bloodline improvement.
“I’m definitely improving as I go.
“I would like to keep all my jenny foals but if the foal isn’t of good enough standard I would rather sell the foal to put it towards buying a better foal.”
In the meantime, the eight remaining miniature pigs on the farm continue to observe the goings-on with interest.
Journalist