An animal rights charity is urging nativity productions to not use live donkeys to avoid them from becoming depressed. The Donkey Sanctuary is recommending schools and churches to instead use models or costumes after seeing “a concerning amount of events where animal welfare is not considered enough”. The Devon-based charity has warned the use of live animals can be dangerous, yet productions continue to feature them despite intervention from welfare activists. 

“Do we really need to take two donkeys out of a field to go and walk them into a noisy, dark, difficult place for them?” Faith Burden, deputy chief executive of The Donkey Sanctuary, told The Telegraph. She said that donkeys in particular do not “show signs of stress, pain or distress” as they are a prey animal, meaning their natural instinct is to hide those emotions.

She said: “Unfortunately, they are really sensitive animals. Your average donkey that spends 364 days of the year in a field and is then put into the bright lights of a nativity play is probably not experiencing a particularly happy time.”

Ms Burden added that donkeys should always be with another donkey as they “pair-bond”, meaning they “don’t tend to do very well on their own”. 

The charity boss gave an example of one donkey which was left alone for a prolonged period of time, resulting in it becoming agitated and a danger to people.

Ben Hart, senior lead in behaviour and human behaviour change at The Donkey Sanctuary, added: “Every year, the local church service has a donkey that comes, and I can see how fearful that donkey is. It really makes it hard to enjoy the service when you can see a donkey in distress.”

Many schools across the UK have used live animals in their nativity plays for years, including Holme Grange School in Wokingham.

Head teacher Clare Robinson said in 2024: “It’s about us wanting to give the pupils the opportunity to live the experience and go through the different stages of the story.

“[They can] gain a perspective from the people perhaps who were there at that time many years ago.”

The donkeys used were sourced locally, the camels came from Warwick and the goat lives on a farm in the school’s grounds.