Rare twin jennets beat the odds near Delta

On a farm near Delta, twin jennet foals toddle after their mother. They're old enough now to frolic around the field with each other.

The two female jennets belong to Terry and Shirley Givens. They were born July 30 to an 8-year-old jennet mare the couple bought in October. They bought her bred, and weren't expecting her to give birth until September, assuming she was pregnant with one foal.

Twins are rare, Shirley Givens said.

"A lot of times a mare will have twins, but will lose one of them," she said. "Or will lose both of them. These were born five weeks early."

One foal is larger than the other, and the smaller one was the more assertive in the first few days of life. By the time they were 2 weeks old, they were both following their mother around the yard.

Givens said she and her husband raise jennets and mules bred from Belgian mares and a donkey jack. Jennets, she said, are their own breed of animal.

"Some people think a jennet is a name for a female mule or donkey, but they are their own species," she said. A female donkey is known as a jenny.

The gestation period for a jennet is 12 months; for a horse it's 11 months. The twins will probably nurse for about six months before weaning, she said.

Jennets look like a small horse with long donkey-like ears. Givens said they are probably more easygoing, even-tempered than mules or horses. A jennet is good protection for a farmer who raises livestock.

"A lot of people show them, and some use them with livestock," Givens said. "They will keep animals away from livestock in the fields. People who have cattle run them to keep coyotes away."

Givens, a teacher at Delta Elementary School, said she calls the foals Sunny and Bunny, but they are not pets.

"You get attached to different ones, but we can't keep them all," she said. "There's just no way."

Some of her jennets and horses have foals, some are yearlings or older, and most of them are for sale.

The couple bought their first horse foal in 1979 and their operation has grown since then; some are born there, while others are purchased. They have no plans to retire from breeding mules and jennets.

"We'll keep some around as long as we're able to take care of them," Givens said.