 By 1996, there were estimated to only be around 30 Poitous in North America.In 1996, Debbie Hamilton, an American, founded the Hamilton Rare Breeds Foundation on a farm in Hartland, Vermont, to breed Poitou donkeys.As of 2004, she owned 26 purebred and 14 partbred Poitous, making hers the largest Poitou breeding operation in the United States, and the second largest in the world, behind the French government-sponsored experimental farm.