We’ve all heard of wingspan measurements in birds, but we had never heard of measuring ear spread in donkeys.                      

It was inevitable that after we read this exchange of comments on our For the love of donkeys page, we had to measure the ear spread of the Morning Bray Farm boys.                     

 Mel N.Y. Says:
July 24, 2010 at 5:05 am Linda, Sweet picture                     

Whats her ear spread ? I’ve met two mammoths with a 33 inch spread !                     

Reply

July 27, 2010 at 10:47 pm Hi Mel,                     

Sam has ears that measure 34 inches, from the tip of one ear down across her head up to the tip of the other.                     

Linda                     

We headed out yesterday afternoon to measure some donkey ears. As usual, we had to put up with Bernard’s antics.                 

                 

Don measured Fergus first.                 

                 

24 3/4″ give or take.                 

                 

Then Ellsworth.                 

                 

26 1/2  inches.                 

                 

Naturally, Bernard wasn’t interested in cooperating because he’s going to be two years old on Friday.                 

                 

                 

We’ll give Bernard 22″.                 

           

From The Donkey Companion:           

A donkey’s hearing isn’t quite as acute as a dog’s but is much better than that of a  human (or even a horse). When a donkey picks up a sound or sights something unusual, he pricks both ears in that direction to capture the minutest sounds and funnel them down to the ear canal and on to his brain. The donkey’s huge ears can each swivel and capture sound independently; separate sounds from each ear are processed and analyzed at the same time.           

Pretty cool, huh? For those of you with donkeys or burros, what’s their ear spread?  

For Carolynn: