Asino Ragusano

Fifty years ago donkeys were everywhere in the Sicilian countryside, carrying loads, turning millstones and pulling ploughs; mechanisation took the work away and several breeds with it. The Ragusano is one of those that nearly went, and about a thousand are left. The coat is a dark reddish brown with a pale belly, the muzzle grey and smooth-haired, mane and tail black. The head is smallish and straight in profile, the forehead broad and flat, the eyes large and ringed with white, the ears straight and middling long, the rump wide and the legs strong.