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  • Home
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  • The Farm
    • Opening Times
    • Our Animals
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  • La Fattoria
    • Orari
    • Nostri Animali
    • I nostri raccolti
  • Visit/Book
    • Farm Visit
    • Donkey Picnic
  • Visita/Prenota
    • Visita in Fattoria
    • Picnic con l'asino
  • Events
    • 🌈☘️ IRISH FESTIVAL ☘️🇮🇪
    • 🥚 EASTER 🐣
    • 🎲 Playtime at the Farm🎯
    • Festa Latina 💃 🌮.🇻🇪
    • FERRAGOSTO!
    • 🎃🎃🎃Pumpkin Patch!
    • HALLOWEEN 🎃👻💀🕸️
    • 🎅🏼 Night of santa Claus 🎅🏼
  • Eventi
    • 🌈☘️FESTA IRLANDESE ☘️🇮🇪
    • 🥚 PASQUA🐣
    • 🎲 Playtime alla Fattoria🎯
    • Festa Latina 🇻🇪 💃 🌮.
    • FERRAGOSTO!!
    • 🎃🎃🎃 Pumpkin Patch (Campo di Zucche!)
    • HALLOWEEN 🎃👻💀🕸️
    • 🎅🏼 La Notte di of santa Claus 🎅🏼
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      • Nero D'Abruzzo
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    • I Nostri Salumi >
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​A Brief History Of Donkeys

Donkeys were first domesticated around 7,000 years ago in North Africa and Egypt for meat and milk. Around 2,000 years ago donkeys were among the draught animals used to carry silk from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean along the Silk Road in return for trade goods. The overland route was approximately 4,000 miles or 6,400km and lasted several years. No single animal completed the entire journey and mixing of breeds occurred as unplanned matings happened en-route to give us the beginnings of the diverse range of donkey breeds we now have.

​The journey ended in the Mediterranean ports of Greece, Italy, the Middle East and Alexandria in Egypt. In Greece donkeys were found to be ideal animals for working on the narrow paths between the vines. Their use for cultivation in vineyards spread through the Mediterranean countries to Spain, whose coast at the southern tip is separated from North Africa by only a few miles - possibly another entry route for the African wild ass.
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The Roman Army was responsible for the movement of donkeys into Northern Europe. Donkeys were used in agriculture and as pack animals. The Romans used donkeys in their new vineyards, some planted as far north as France and Germany. Donkeys came to England with the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. However, donkeys were still not commonly documented in the UK until after the 1550s. 
Donkeys were the first animals to pull wheeled vehicles, and the first to be ridden. Riders were higher and faster and therefore superior to people on foot. Cuneiform tablets from the Bronze Age city of Mari in Syria show how donkey carts were considered appropriate transport for kings, and the famous royal Standard of Ur shows royalty being drawn in carts pulled by donkeys or onagers. 
The Mari tablets also show that only a pure bred donkey was acceptable for important sacrifices, and a foundation deposit beneath  a temple at Tel Haror in Israel (1500-1400 BC) consisted of a sacrificed donkey together with the oldest bridle bit yet recovered. So although Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday is usually taken to represent his association with the poor, this is not so. An alternative translation of the prophecy that Christ would enter Jerusalem on the back of a ‘humble ass’ makes it clear that the animal was associated with kingship.

​Donkeys were used by the Roman army from c. 200 BC but mules, the hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, were to become the most important working animals for the military and were used to pull heavy artillery such as catapults. It has been estimated that there were probably half a million mules serving in the Roman army by the time of Augustus (31 BC-AD 14) but they have remained elusive in the archaeological record until recently. The advent of precise morphometric techniques and DNA studies has now shown that mules may have comprised up to 50% of the equids in the Roman Empire. Horses were the elite animals, but mules and donkeys were the commonplace working animals. Roman mules were surprisingly large and uniform in size, suggesting that their breeding was controlled.
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Christ entering Jerusalem from a mosaic in the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, Sicily
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Donkeys in Abruzzo

The Transhumance

Donkeys have been used as an animal of burden for thousands of years and Abruzzo just like the rest of Europe used donkeys to aid agricultural work. 

There are many Italian breeds of Donkey but Abruzzo does not have an autochthonous breed but over the centuries especially in the last 500 years Abruzzese donkeys we mostly large, brown and with a white nose and stomach.

It is believed that this form and colouration is due to the transhumance and the use of the pugliese breed of donkey, the Martina Franca.

The Martina Franca breed is famous for being used to create mules, but was also used to travel along side the sheep as they undertook the transhumance, a 200km bi annual migration between Abruzzo and Puglia. 

The donkeys were used to carry equipment and supplies, act as a guardian for the sheep and they will fend off wolves and other predators and also to carry lambs born on route that could not keep up with the flock when so young.

Due to this use the donkeys were often in Abruzzo and cross breeding with local donkeys is likely to have been common place.
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Martina Franca Donkeys 

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Donkeys travelling with sheep as a guardian

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Donkey carrying lambs born while sheep are travelling

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What happened to the Donkeys?

Donkeys were very common to see up until the 1960s and later. The last Donkey left Carapelle Calvisio in the 1990s, until we bought our first donkeys in 2017.

Donkeys were used to carry wood and produce using their basti (donkey saddle) especially in the medieval villages with small winding cobbled streets and would also carry their owners.

Sadly the increased availability of cars and other vehicles made the use of donkeys less attractive and their numbers declined quickly.
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Experiences with our Donkeys

Donkeys in addition to being used as animals of burden were also used as a source of meat and to produce milk.

The market for donkey meat and milk is still very strong but we have decided not to use our donkeys for production and instead focus on providing memorable experiences.
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Picnic with our donkeys
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Pet therapy Sessions
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Donkey Facts

  • A donkey is stronger than a horse of the same size
  • Donkeys can see all four of their feet at the same time
  • Donkeys can vary hugely in size, from 26 inches to 68 inches tall
  • The donkey's characteristic sound is called braying. It is unique among the equids because it requires an ability that donkeys have but horses and zebras lack: vocalizing while both inhaling and exhaling. The hee occurs during air intake, and the haw comes during air outflow.
  • Despite this sound being specific to donkeys, there is still some variation. The duration and frequency of a bray, for instance, is unique to each individual animal.
  • A donkey's bray can carry up to 60 miles in the desert
  • Donkeys have incredibly efficient digestive systems, utilising 95% of what they eat
  • Donkeys don't like being in the rain for long periods as their fur is not waterproof
  • Healthy donkeys can live well into their 50s
  • A blind donkey will often bond with a seeing donkey who will act as their guide
  • Donkeys can be a calming influence on other animals
  • Donkeys are very clever with a keen sense of curiosity
  • Donkeys are not stubborn but can be reluctant to do anything that might be unsafe - they consider situations before deciding what to do
  • Donkeys are extremely nimble and can cross tricky terrain
  • Donkeys are very sociable and form strong bonds - you will often see pairs of best friends within a herd
  • Donkeys are different to horses in their physiology, communication, thinking and behaviour - they do their best with other donkeys as companions
  • There are over 44 million donkeys worldwide ​​
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'Discover Nature's Magic'

Fattoria Valle Magica snc.. Località Ponte Amaro, Carapelle Calvisio, L'Aquila 67020. Italy
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