I just cant stand my mare being alone anymore, so have decided the cheapest, easiest to manage and most fun approach to a barn and pasture mate is a miniature burro. Anyone out there have experience with how well these two should get along, My mare is very sweet, affectionate, docile and non dominanat around other horses. She ltolerates my lab and loves my pug. thanks Robin

Hi Robin, welcome to the forum.
My own experience in this was a long, long time ago, back when I was 13 or 14, we had two geldings and a burro who all got along..somewhat, but not great. One of our horses tolerated Duke (the donkey) while my mom's horse would insesently pester and pick on poor ol Duke. We ended up selling him before everything got out of hand.

I now run a yahoogroup for wild horse and burro adopters..there are several members that have both...but almost all of them have to keep the horses seperated from the burros.

Another option, and one that usually works good together, is a goat..most horses, once they get used to goats, like them...and vise-versa. I've known of several that were nearly inseperable.
My daughter even had a pony (Stormy) and our 1/2 Pigmy goat and the pony had quite the love affair going on, lol. no joke! Zepher, our goat, would lay on Stormy's back whenever she sunbathed..and if you took one out of the pasture without the other...the one left behind would cry and cry until you returned. They were glued at the hip, I swear, lol.

Good luck with whatever you decide.
Again, welcome.

Hello Robin,
I have a miniature donkey with two of my geldings. We got her when she was 6 months old and put her with our 18 year old gelding. The older gelding was getting picked on too much by my younger horses so we thought maybe a companion would help. They took to each other in a few weeks. recently we added a retired 8 year old Thoroughbreed and they get along well.
Now whenever I take out either horse, She makes a fuss and runs circles until they're back together. I've even run her in the round pen with the rest of my horses sometimes. She's rather quick and isn't afraid to kick a much larger horse if they pick on her too much.
I don't know if this is an exception or because the two geldings she's with are gentle. When I put her with my two younger geldings, they chase her for a bit then settle down and even let her eat out of the same feed barrel.

My wife and I really enjoy our miniature donkey, as does our 4 year old son.

good luck and I hope this help.

Hi, this helps tremendously,l sounds like it works out, and with just one mare i have, the bonding should be greater, thank you so much, was therre any secret or advice to the initial meeting to enhance the bonding??? thank you so much, robin

No there weren't any secrets, we just put our mini "abbey" in the pen with the older horse and within a day she took to him. Now "Abbey" was only 6 months old so perhaps she took to the older horse to replace her mother.

Hope this helps.

good luck.