Weather permitting I’m planning on taking my qh cow pony to a ‘donkey sorting’ tonight. I’ve never seen one but it’s supposed to be close to cow sorting/team penning with a 3 man team…
It should be interresting. He’s a fantastic sorting horse but has never worked donkeys… the ears may throw him off :winkgrin: but it should be a fun time and just what I need to decompress from a very long work week!!
Anyone else out here ever been to one of these?
Only in the South! 
Good luck! The last time my horse saw a donkey, it ended up being a “horse sorting”.:winkgrin:
We need an update and pictures!
I have to also add that this was a church function at the local cowboy church… I’ll be checking them out in the future!!
Here is the only picture captured from the night. Bob is the horse on the right, not a great picture cause he was too busy making ugly faces at the donkeys to take a good picture. It was very different from using cows, I prefer cows as the donkeys kicked back and didn’t run from the horses like cows do. Wasn’t sure how he would react but he did fine once we got in there and started pushing the donkeys around like we did the cows… once the light bulb went off I could feel him say ‘I got this mom!’ Love my cow pony!
Here are a few pictures of him actually sorting cows.
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee499/mstout2/BobSorting6.jpg
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee499/mstout2/BobSorting4.jpg
http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee499/mstout2/BobSorting3.jpg
Out of curiousity…why would you sort donkeys? I get cow sorting…but…donkeys? Not trying to enflame or start anything, just curious if sorting and herding donkeys is a new sport or a necessity someplace. Please say this isn’t related to donkey roping…
Cute horse, by the way! My paint (who is a hunter) is terrified of cattle. And, yeah, we’ve tried to desensitize him to livestock…no luck!
Out of curiousity…why would you sort donkeys? I get cow sorting…but…donkeys? Not trying to enflame or start anything, just curious if sorting and herding donkeys is a new sport or a necessity someplace.
Well you can’t just keep on intermingling them silly! Order requires sorted donkeys!
(And no, I have no real answer, but it made me giggle)
I was thinking by height, like lining up for pictures…or by color or gender! :lol: It does sound like fun, except for the grumpy faced kicking and noise of donkeys. My scaredy-cat horse would have a heart attack when faced with one donkey, let alone a dozen or more!
Not that this is completely on subject, but I was just at a horse show and someone brought their riding mule to sightsee. On the show grounds was a donkey…and the mule was more scared of the donkey than any of the horses were afraid of the mule.
My cutting and racebred QH that I had when I was a kid was terrified of cattle. He didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to be a cow horse.
[QUOTE=Calvincrowe;7031758]
Out of curiousity…why would you sort donkeys? I get cow sorting…but…donkeys? Not trying to enflame or start anything, just curious if sorting and herding donkeys is a new sport or a necessity someplace. Please say this isn’t related to donkey roping…[/QUOTE]
Right now cows are big $$ to buy, donkeys on the other hand are almost always free or close to it. While most people would prefer cows, donkeys are the cheaper way around it.
I wondered how donkey sorting would go. I’ve done it a little with horses (moving them to different pastures) and they were a huge pain. Horses don’t intimidate like cows and I didn’t figure donkeys would either. 
My horse would sort me right back to the trailer if he saw donkeys instead of cows! LOL
Had to add to this thread: there was another one last Friday night at the same place. There were a lot more teams there this time and they made the time limit from 2 minutes to 90 seconds… so we had to put 7 donkeys in order in a pen in the middle of the arena in less than 90 seconds… :yes:
I ended up staying for the jackpot and we ended up 2 & 3 in the Jackpot!!! We were winning it by almost 10 seconds until the last team beat us barely by 4 seconds!
This was a blast and for any calf sorters and penners out there I’d highly recommend trying this out. It’s much harder than with calves! but still a lot of fun.
I wonder how it would work with goats. We have cut on goats here in the NE when cattle get too expensive and if you can cut on a goat, it makes cutting cattle seem easy. Goats also don’t sour like cattle and cost a whole lot less to maintain.
You can work the donkeys a lot longer then you can cows because the heat is not such a factor.
I have a friend that does this and they have a blast.
For the purist dog herder, cutter and penner, cattle, buffalo, sheep, Muscovy ducks, those will herd and so work differently than other species that rather scatter and will kind of herd only under duress, like donkeys, other kind of fowl, goats can fit somewhere in the middle, some will herd, some scatter like wild things.
When your stock doesn’t truly herd, then you are reverting back to chasing, which is fine in some events like penning, just makes the job a bit harder.
The real cutters would not even think of penning, it distracts from cutting one on one and some even think cutters lose focus after penning too much and are not as good a cutter later.
In real ranch work, you would just not “use” your stock as in arena cutting or penning, it is just not done for time, but to get the job done.
Old times would not like it if you took some of their cattle, put them in a pen and “practiced” on them.:eek:
Even out in the pastures, cowboys would be fired if they were caught cutting or roping or in any way chasing stock around “just to train their horse”.:no:
Now, done well, you can practice any you want to do and compete without harm to any livestock, as long as you are well aware of what you are doing, not only hot on the fun part.
Some of our nicer to handle replacement heifers were used gently for cutting practice.
For some years, we used to provide several hundred cattle a year for a big cutting finals event and they were handled very nicely.
What we have to keep reminding all those using stock to practice and compete is that the stock are not horse or dog toys.:no:
Just adding perspective to some of this.
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