The potential for new donkey farming systems to supply the growing demand for hides

The demand for donkey hides for ejiao, a Traditional Chinese Medicine, has resulted in rapidly increasing prices for donkey hides and donkeys. This has put pressure on donkey populations globally and has implications for donkey welfare and the livelihoods of those who rely on donkeys as working animals. The aim of the research was to explore the feasibility of setting up new donkey farming systems to supply the rising demand for ejiao using a system dynamics model of donkey production. Results show that the size of the initial female breeding herd, reproductive performance, age of reproduction, percentage of female births and average breeding life of donkeys are key variables affecting the time to build up the donkey population to supply the demand for hides, which will be at least ten to fifteen years. The implications of this are: (i) prices for donkey hides will continue to increase, (ii) companies producing ejiao will use other ingredients, (iii) China will continue to source donkey hides from around the world, and (iv) there will be continued theft and illegal trade of donkeys and concerns for rural households reliant on donkeys for their livelihoods and adverse impacts on donkey welfare

The Old Testament prophecy about the ass's foal of the Messiah and donkey-terminology

The donkey is charged with a rich, important biblical symbolism. Usually the kings choose a strong and combatant animal for ceremonies – a thoroughbred horse, an imposing elephant or even a camel. Christ enters Jerusalem on “the foal of a she-ass”, as the king of the Jews. This is to fulfil the the tradition – David has a “royal she-ass” and Solomon is anointed as king on a “wild donkey”. It is either wisdom or stupidity for a king to ride an animal symbolizing love of peace and sexuality. According to other interpretations, the male donkey is related to the material domain with its flesh and strength, whereas those who ride it in ceremonies have mastered this aspect of the human being and society…. However, how do we account for the fact that in Hebrew the ass’s foal is not a diminutive of the word ‘donkey’, as well as the fact that the she-ass signifies ‘slow pace’ and has nothing in common with the jackass? And what does Solomon’s wild donkey signify? The book replies to these curious questions and to the riddle as to why the king of the Jews rides “the foal of a she-ass” and the king is of the tribe of Judah, of whom Jacob/Israel prophesies that he will untie his donkey, just as the apostles set free the ass’s foal for which Jesus Christ sent them

Donkeys under Discussion

Donkey sentences have existential and universal readings, but they are not often perceived as ambiguous. We extend the pragmatic theory of nonmaximality in plural definites by Križ (2016) to explain how context disambiguates donkey sentences. We propose that the denotations of such sentences produce truth-value gaps — in certain scenarios the sentences are neither true nor false — and demonstrate that Križ’s pragmatic theory fills these gaps to generate the standard judgments of the literature. Building on Muskens’s (1996) Compositional Discourse Representation Theory and on ideas from supervaluation semantics, the semantic analysis defines a general schema for quantification that delivers the required truth-value gaps. Given the independently motivated pragmatic theory of Križ 2016, we argue that mixed readings of donkey sentences require neither plural information states, contra Brasoveanu 2008, 2010, nor error states, contra Champollion 2016, nor singular donkey pronouns with plural referents, contra Krifka 1996, Yoon 1996. We also show that the pragmatic account improves over alternatives like Kanazawa 1994 that attribute the readings of donkey sentences to the monotonicity properties of the embedding quantifier

Donkey and Tiger

MP4 video‘Donkey and Tiger’ was told by Rgyal mtshan in A mdo Tibetan. Rta rgyugs, a subdivision of Rka phug Administrative Village, is a farming village located in Khams ra Town, Gcan tsa County Town, Rma lho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, PR China. In 2010, there were 15 Han Chinese households and 18 Tibetan households in Rta rgyugs Village. The total population was 175 residents (33 households). Most Han Chinese residents were fluent in Tibetan and communicated in Tibetan with local Tibetan villagers. རྐ་ཕུག་སྡེ་བའི་ཁོངས་སུ་གཏོགས་པའི་རྟ་རྒྱུགས་སྡེ་བ་ནི་ཞིང་ལས་གཙོ་བོར་གཉེར་བའི་བོད་སྡེ་ཞིག་ཡིན་ལ། དེ་ནི་ཁམས་ར་གྲོང་བརྡལ་དུ་ཆགས་ཤིང་གཅན་ཚ་རྫོང་མཁར་དང་བར་ཐག་སྤྱི་ལེ་༣༥ ལྷག་ཡོད། གཅན་ཚ་རྫོང་ནི་ཀྲུང་གོའི་མཚོ་སྔོན་ཞིང་ཆེན་རྨ་ལྷོ་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་གྱི་རྫོང་བཞིའི་ཡ་གྱལ་ཞིག་ཡིན་ཏེ། ༢༠༡༠ལོར་རྟ་རྒྱུགས་སྡེ་བར་བསྡོམས་པས་ཁྱིམ་ཚང་སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གསུམ་ཡོད་ལ། དེའི་གྲས་སུ་ཁྱིམ་ཚང་བཅོ་ལྔ་ནི་རྒྱ་རིགས་ཡིན་པ་དང་། ཁྱིམ་ཚང་བཅོ་བརྒྱད་བོད་རིགས་ཡིན། རྒྱའི་མི་ཁྱིམ་ཕལ་ཆེ་བས་བོད་སྐད་བཤད་ཤེས་པ་དང་དུས་རྒྱུན་དུ་བོད་སྐད་བཀོད་སྤྱོད་བྱས་ནས་སྡེ་བའི་ནང་གི་བོད་མི་ཚོར་འབྲེལ་འདྲིས་བྱེད། ད་ལྟ་རྟ་རྒྱུགས་སྡེ་བར་འདུས་སྡོད་བྱེད་པའི་མི་གྲངས་ ༡༧༥ཡིན། Rka phug sde ba'i khongs su gtogs pa'i rta rgyugs sde ba ni zhing las gtso bor gnyer ba'i bod sde zhig yin la/ de ni khams ra grong brdal du chags shing gcan tsha rdzong mkhar dang bar thag spyi le 35 lhag yod/ gcan tsha rdzong ni krung go'i mtsho sngon zhing chen rma lho bod rigs rang skyong khul gyi rdzong bzhi'i ya gyal zhig yin te/ 2010 lor rta rgyugs sde bar bsdoms pas khyim tshang sum cu so gsum yod la/ de'i gras su khyim tshang bco lnga ni rgya rigs yin pa dang/ khyim tshang bco brgyad bod rigs yin/ rgya'i mi khyim phal che bas bod skad bshad shes pa dang dus rgyun du bod skad bkod spyod byas nas sde ba'i nang gi bod mi tshor 'brel 'dris byed/ da lta rta rgyugs sde bar 'dus sdod byed pa'i mi grangs 175yin

Current knowledge on functionality and potential therapeutic uses of donkey milk

The increase of knowledge on the composition of donkey milk has revealed marked similarities to human milk, which led to a growing number of investigations focused on testing the potential effects of donkey milk in vitro and in vivo. This paper examines the scientific evidence regarding the beneficial effects of donkey milk on human health. Most clinical studies report a tolerability of donkey milk in 82.6–98.5% of infants with cow milk protein allergies. The average protein content of donkey milk is about 18 g/L. Caseins, which are main allergenic components of milk, are less represented compared to cow milk (56% of the total protein in donkey vs. 80% in cow milk). Donkey milk is well accepted by children due to its high concentration of lactose (about 60 g/L). Immunomodulatory properties have been reported in one study in humans and in several animal models. Donkey milk also seems to modulate the intestinal microbiota, enhance antioxidant defense mechanisms and detoxifying enzymes activities, reduce hyperglycemia and normalize dyslipidemia. Donkey milk has lower calorie and fat content compared with other milks used in human nutrition (fat ranges from 0.20% to 1.7%) and a more favourable fatty acid profile, being low in saturated fatty acids (3.02 g/L) and high in alpha-linolenic acid (about 7.25 g/100 g of fat). Until now, the beneficial properties of donkey milk have been mostly related to whey proteins, among which β-lactoglobulin is the most represented (6.06 g/L), followed by α-lactalbumin (about 2 g/L) and lysozyme (1.07 g/L). So far, the health functionality of donkey milk has been tested almost exclusively on animal models. Furthermore, in vitro studies have described inhibitory action against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. From the literature review emerges the need for new randomized clinical trials on humans to provide stronger evidence of the potential beneficial health effects of donkey milk, which could lead to new applications as an adjuvant in the treatment of cardiometabolic diseases, malnutrition, and aging

Donkey milk: chemical make-up, biochemical features, nutritional worth, and possible human health benefits - Current state of scientific knowledge

Milk and milk derivatives are widely consumed because of their high nutritional density. Donkey milk and milk products have been consumed since ancient times. The use of donkey milk in the human diet is gaining popularity. The abundance of antibacterial components and protective elements in donkey milk sets it apart from the milk of other animals. Like human milk, donkey milk has low fat, high lactose, and low casein/whey protein ratio. Donkey milk whey protein's anti-proliferative properties imply lung cancer treatment. Alpha-lactalbumin, a type of protein, has been found to have antiviral, anticancer, and anti-stress properties. Donkey milk, like human milk, includes a low amount of casein and a smaller quantity of beta-lactoglobulin than cow milk. Donkey milk is an alternative for newborns with cow milk protein allergy and lactose intolerance since it has a higher amount of lactose, improves palatability, and prevents allergies. Osteogenesis, arteriosclerosis therapy, cardiac rehabilitation, accelerated aging, and hypocholesterolemic diets are some areas where donkey milk is beneficial. Since it contains probiotic lactobacilli strains, fermented beverages can be made with donkey milk. Donkey milk moisturizes skin due to its high vitamin, mineral, and polyunsaturated fatty acid content. The chemical makeup and potential therapeutic benefits of donkey milk warrant additional research. This has led to a rise in interest in producing dairy goods derived from donkey milk. Donkey milk has been used to make cheese, ice cream, milk powder, and even some experimental useful fermented drinks. The present article summarises what we know about donkey milk's chemical makeup, biological functions, nutritional worth, and possible human health benefits