I havent seen as many deer the last couple of years and I'm wondering if its because my neighbor has donkeys. Do they scare off the deer ?

The neighbor has donkeys probably to keep the varmints out of his goats or sheep. If the varmints are not on his land because of the donkeys, the varmints may be on your land staying away from the donkeys, but working the fenceline to catch an unlucky sheep or goat that might get through the fence or might get hung up in the fence. With more varmints on your land, the deer will be more scarce because they are trying to stay away from the varmints. So the donkeys may be the cause of you seeing fewer deer, but it is not because the deer are scared of the donkeys. The deer may be more plentiful on his land because of the lack of varmints.

What BenBob said. Donkeys very aggressively run coyotes and wild dogs off. They may very well just be pushing them all onto your land.

Get some donkeys to push them further.

I have 6 donkeys on my land and have seen yotes run right between them. I dont think the donks have an issue with them unless they are theatened or my donks are sissies

My buddy's donkeys will chase anything even remotely resembling a coyote or dog until it's either gone, out of reach, or dead.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen was my dog cowering in his kennel in the back of my truck while the donkey blew him out over the tailgate. It just sat there hee-haw'ing at the top of its lungs while my dog stared in disbelief.

I've seen a donkey kill a new born calf... Chased and then sat on it.

That donkey is in donkey heavy via 3/8 poly rope, tripped with three coils in hand

Wild burros/donkeys in Big Bend are not friendly at all. Seen em chase a mule deer down just because it was on his trail. Had a few charge my truck. Also herd plenty of stories of them charging into camps if you are near there trail or on it.

I would say they do have an effect on mule deer populations but that again is wild ones.

Donkeys are very vigilant protectors of the property that they reside on.

My folks had them for years, and yes, they are aggressive.

The jacks were the most aggressive, I'd find remains of coyotes and even a few bobcats pretty often. He'd knock them over, pin them down with one front foot, and pummel them to death with the other. Then once the varmint was dead, he'd revisit the corpse every few hours to stomp on it some more.

They also kept the deer pretty well off the property. Since getting rid of them, deer activity has increased dramatically.

We had a donkey years ago that was supposed to keep away the coyotes. I looked out one morning when the sheep were starting to lamb and the donkey way stomping the new born lambs. No more donkeys here.

I'm hearing yes's and no's. Every evening I look out my back door and see 12-15 donkeys,horses, minis and mammoths and then I see my (at least) 2 does (sometimes more). Neighbor has had equine as long as my family has been on the land........he also has the biggest and most deer herd. I agree that a deer will not challenge a donkey but I'm not sold on them running deer off of a property. Disclaimer: ALL of the equine on our property are relatively tame and 95% are trained to lead and/or pull.

I have 3 guard donkeys and I have goats also. Every once in a while, I have seen the donkeys snort a warning or advance towards a goat. Most of this behavior has to do with food. I have a dog that I take with me every day when I check the goats and he is always very careful around the donkeys and every once in a while, the donkeys make a run at him. You can tell from their demeanor that they would like to catch him and if they did, I think I would have to go dog shopping.

I also think a single donkey will bond with a group of sheep or goats. In this case I think the donkey will defend the sheep or goats from coyotes or dogs to protect the herd, with the donkey itself being a member of the sheep or goat herd because donkeys are herd animals. If you have more than one donkey is when I think you see the behavior of running after the sheep or goats because they already have their own little herd and they are keeping animals away from their herd. I think intact jacks are the worst at chasing the goats or sheep.

Single donkeys keep varmints away by actually chasing them. I think numerous donkeys keep varmints away by talking back and forth to each other and by walking the fencelines and letting the varmints know that they are around just by their physical presence. They make many a mile around my place, as their tracks are everywhere. Donkeys have a habit of also going to the bathroom in the same place a considerable amount of the time and I think it is strategically placed by the donkeys to let other animals know that they are around.

Donkeys are mean!!! My uncle has donkeys on his land, and if they're not used to you, they'll come after you. Dogs, coyotes, cats, snakes, even horses and birds....they attack pretty much everything

Mike was going to catch one of those donkeys for me, but after reading this I may reconsider. sheesh

I still may get one for my brother in law.

Lol. Interesting to find this all out now. We almost roped one for you 2 weeks ago on the side of the road. I could only imagine what it would have done to my truck!

LOL, My hunting buddy bought a donkey at auction one time. He put it out on one of our dove leases to scare off the coyotes as we were starting to see wild turkey on the lease and wanted to hunt it in the spring. Well? that damn donkey hated people! he would chase us every time went tried to go dove hunting! So not only did we have to find a new dove lease, we had to try and catch that stupid donkey! it took 6 months to catch that damn thing!

Pepper that arse with #8 shot a time or two and he'll sing a different song about chasing people.

I used to have a horse that would stomp yotes and dogs. He also killed on my goats, and kicked a Brangus bull right smack in the face.. But he was a heck of a healing pony!! Won a lot of money on that idiot!!

I will never hunt on a place that has donkeys on it again.

My buddy has a single purple (yes, purple) donkey on his ranch that protects their barbado sheep. God help anyone or anything that trys to get close to those sheep. One of the regular white sheep got mixed up with the barbado last time I was down there and it wasn't pretty. Doesn't seem to bother the deer, but then again it's just a single donkey.