When Play turns to Games

Play with all baby animals can consist of just the pure physical joy in the freedom of racing around like our donkey foals do, but that joy is enriched when there is a playful interaction with others.  There is nothing more fun to watch than a half dozen or more little foals racing up and down hills, in and out amongst the herd, chasing one another.

Probably all baby animals play.  We once came upon fox kits frolicking in a wooded road, ignoring their mother's warnings that we were there.  And my grandfather told of how each afternoon his dog and a young deer would meet in the middle of the hay field and play together.  Some animals don't even need a playmate, like a young moose having fun splashing in water.

We usually don't see adult donkeys physically play, though some of them do enjoy carrying around and sometimes even squeaking dog toys.  "Play" sometimes reaches a higher level, though, as we have recently witnessed with our 13 year old jack, Luciano.  His stall is in the corner of the barn with one side adjacent to the foaling pen and another to the main barn where the herd of jennets is.  During foaling season our barn cam is aimed at the foaling pen which also allows us to see him at the same time.  This is how we discovered that Luciano enjoys teasing our jennets.  In the evening Luciano leaves a few morsels of grain in his dish, picks it up with his mouth and slides the dish part way through the slats of his pen.  When a jennet goes for the "bait," he pulls it back again.  This happens over and over again until a jennet is quick enough to grab his dish and finish off his grain.

So play and games come in many forms, even in the donkey world.