How do you price a donkey?

Pricing a donkey can be difficult, depending on where you are and what he can do. First off lets look at what he is and what he can do.

At 13 hands ( 52")  he's considered a large standard. He looks to have nice bone but he will probably at most be able to comfortably carry a light rider ( small man , woman , or child ).  He would be a nice size for us older generation that have trouble getting on the bigger donkeys.

He's a gelding. This is a big plus in my opinion. You won't find many donkey geldings. He won't present the problems of the jennies when they are in season and not being a jack has it's obvious benefits.

He has been ground driven. This means to me that he has some of the fundamentals on leading to being rode. We ground drive all our donkeys, mules and horses before they are ever rode. That way they know what some cues means before they are ever sat on.

He has been sat on without upset. Most donkeys accept this reasonably well. But the fact that he is use to the weight on his back is a positive for me.

Is he registered? If so what is his breeding ? If not that can be a minus but not a big one. He can be registered still with ADMS. However his buyers still won't know his parentage or if they have any type of performance donkeys in his background. ( Yes we actually have preformance donkeys. []  )

His size can be a minus as some will want bigger. You have to carefully screen potential buyers so that they don't try to purchase him for to big a rider.

The thing that will hurt him the most is that he isn't broke to pull a buggy or wagon yet and that he isn't trained to ride.

I, personally, wouldn't take less than $350 for him and I'm really not sure I'd take less than $400 . Your best bet is to train him to ride. Do his ground training ( wearing a saddle, flexing to pressure on the reins, ground driving under saddle, lay across the saddle)  $450.   Ride him 3 or 4 times, short sessions in a round pen, just so that they know he will move under saddle and no bucking,  $500 firm.   If you can get 10 short rides on him and get him going outside the round pen. $750 .  The more experience he gets, the more he can do, more place he can go such as trail rides and ect,  the higher the price.  That's how I price mine anyhow.

Hope that helps.  []

Thank you so much - extremely helpful!  Unfortunately he is not registered.  I do know in his early years he had been used as a stud to make mules, but as soon as he came here I got him gelded.  He has shown no stud-like behavior since the gelding.

He has worn a saddle here a couple times while ground driving and he does flex to pressure.  So I guess that would put him around $450.  Should I up it a bit but be willing to come down, or just start him there?  I need to see if I can get a hold of his old owner and see if he ever had him in harness.  I do know his old owner used his donkey and mules to pull a wagon and also do farm work. 

I would love to start him actually undersaddle, but at my current weight (about 200 lbs) I think I am way too heavy for him even for short rides.  I think he would be incredibly easy to start though and he is super level headed.  Unfortunately there is no one around here that I would trust with starting him though.

I actually don't think your to heavy to start him if you keep your rides to about 10 - 15 mins ( actual ride time ) and down to 2 to 3 times a week.  You'll be surprised at how quickly he learns. The fact that he is a mature donkey helps you in this. He would benefit greatly from having the skill of being "green broke" as most people do not want to put the first few rides on anything including a donkey. His chances of finding a good home would rise greatly and if you could get him to the point where a intermediate level child could ride him, his opportunities would grow by leaps and bounds. He's a handsome boy. The best time to try to sell him would be this spring or summer when everyone is looking for something to ride.

I would start his price higher than what you want and give yourself some wiggle room for those that like to haggle. It's very seldom that people don't want to haggle over the price and coming down even a little makes them feel good. 

Thanks Fancymules!  I'll see about getting him started some under saddle.  I placed a couple ads around to get started, but will change them as I get them started.  I agree - he learns thinks extremely quickly and it won't take him long.

I agree with Fancymules. the more training he has the more valuable he is. I originally bought Daisy for $350 and there were alot of 'maybes' - she 'might' be trained to ride, she 'might' be trained to drive and so on. So far she's been totally worth it. So the more training you can get into JJ now the better off he'll be.

How much does he weigh? I agree with Fancy, you can get on him, just keep it short. My donkey friend told me that Daisy would be able to carry me ( 148lbs) as long as it wasn't all day & no going up & down hills. To this day I haven't ridden her for more than ten minutes at a time. I imagine some day she'll be more conditioned and we can ride around longer.

he looks like a great donk! looks nice & sturdy.