What are the key technical points and precautions for donkey farming?

Donkeys have high economic value. Among their products, donkey hide is the main raw material for making Ejiao, donkey meat is a delicious and nutritious meat food, and donkey milk also has high nutritional value. In recent years, with the development of the specialty farming industry, donkey farming has attracted more and more attention. So what technical points should be noted when farming donkeys?

1. Disinfect the donkey barn regularly

Regularly disinfect the pens, roads, and the donkey herd; disinfect the farrowing house, pregnant mares, and the umbilical cord stump of newborn foals before birth; disinfect when personnel and vehicles enter or leave the production area; disinfect feed, drinking water, and the medical instruments used; disinfect when an individual in the donkey herd develops a disease or dies suddenly; carry out extensive disinfection in the early stage of an outbreak of a virulent infectious disease in a large herd and after the epidemic subsides.

Disinfection methods:

Physical disinfection methods such as mechanical cleaning and scrubbing, ventilation, high pressure and high temperature (boiling in a pressure cooker, incineration, etc.) and light (sunlight, ultraviolet light); chemical disinfection methods that use disinfectants to kill pathogens; and biological disinfection methods such as sealed stacking fermentation, sedimentation tank fermentation, and biogas digester fermentation.

2. Insect and rodent control

Killing harmful insects and wild animals such as rats on the farm, eliminating sources of epidemic infection, and cutting off their transmission routes is another important measure for controlling infectious diseases on donkey farms. Chemical insecticides are often used to spray large areas inside donkey barns, and residual spraying is carried out on mosquito and fly habitats and breeding sites inside and outside the farm area. Install mosquito and fly prevention facilities on doors and windows. To control rodent damage, all workers on the farm should be mobilized to take action, using the method of clearing away all hiding places and food sources so that rodents have difficulty obtaining food, digging up and destroying their outdoor nests, and filling and blocking indoor rat holes to trap the rats inside, so as to achieve the goal of completely driving them out and killing them. At the same time, effective rodenticides are used and placed over large areas inside and outside the designated areas.

3. Preventive vaccination and regular quarantine

Preventive vaccination is the use of vaccines (bacterins) to inject healthy donkeys before disease onset in order to prevent the occurrence of infectious diseases. At present, there are very few vaccines (bacterins) available for donkeys, and many diseases still require general preventive measures. The commonly carried out vaccinations are anthrax spore vaccine and tetanus toxoid vaccine, injected once every spring.

4. Improve fertility and conception rate

1. Adjust the herd structure and increase the proportion of breeding mares so that breeding mares make up 50%-70% of the herd.

2. Arrange things rationally and promote artificial insemination so that as many mares as possible participate in mating.

3. Increase body condition and restore vigor to promote estrus.

4. Improve feeding management and maintain moderate body condition in mares.

5. The semen quality of jacks must be high, and the quality of frozen semen must comply with national standards.

6. Inseminate and mate at the right time, which requires accurately mastering estrus identification, grasping the appropriate insemination time, and skillfully mastering insemination techniques.