4 ms·

The author misses a key important point: you can also eat the donkey.

• 988747 4y ago
  But you can't feed the donkey to remaining donkeys.
  • progre 4y ago
    I'v seen donkeys happily munching down plastic bags and cardboard. I sure you could feed dried donkey meat to a donkey (not saying it's a good idea)
    • 988747 4y ago
      And the effect for a donkey would be probably similar to eating plastic bags: They cannot properly digest it so they suffer from malnutrition, eventually die.
• zardo 4y ago
  That would certainly extend your range, but it would be very costly in donkeys. Instead of needing 1000 donkeys to sustain a siege, you now need say 100 donkeys/day.
• motohagiography 4y ago
  You can also breed them (though you can't breed mules without horses, etc). There is a cycle in this equation where you can breed replenishment donkeys once from a subset of them every year or so, and they go into productive use after about 2-3 years. Depending on the length of your campaign, you can extend your range by eating older donkeys as jerky and soup and breeding new ones. Setting out with a bunch of pregnant donkeys could also extend your range and campaign. Add goats (who can even ride donkeys) and you have a renewable source of protein via milk and cheeses. Horse gestation is marginally shorter, but you can also milk them to feed troops, as mogolians did. I don't know if you can milk donkeys, and mules less likely given their sterility. This is complex enough that it could become a game.