Horses and Donkeys and Mules and More

 

My molly mule, Delta Dawn

If you don't occupy the world where a "frog" is found in a horse's hoof or "brain surgery" means castration of a male horse, you might not know the ins and outs of horse hybrid terminology. Most people know a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, but it's not exactly that simple. Let's dive into the lexicon of horse hybridization.

The humble, utilitarian donkey goes by a few different names. There's the humble burro, a donkey with a Spanish accent: small, tough little critters brought to North America as beasts of burden for prospectors. The burro is the long-eared equine that runs feral in many parts of the southwestern US. 

My sweet burro, Odelia. Note the white markings on the side of her neck. This is her BLM freeze brand, identifying her as having been adopted from feral BLM herds.

There are other types of donkeys. There are onagers, the wild asses of Asia (aka the Asiatic ass); mammoth jacks, which are large donkeys often used as bloodstock for mule-production or as riding donkeys; Sicilian donkeys from Italy, also known as miniature donkeys; the Baudet du Poitou, which is a fancy-sounding name for a type of donkey with a distinctive long coat; Corsican donkeys; and plenty of other donkeys, each with their own unique history and type. Donkeys are all equines, but they aren't horses. They have long ears, short manes, fairly straight backs, distinctive angles to their shoulders and hips, and tails that can't decide if they're long haired or short. 

A female donkey is referred to as a "jenny" and a male donkey is a "jack," (hence the name "jackass.") Now, if you take a jenny donkey and cross her with a male horse (stallion), do you get a mule? Nope. You get a hinny. It's a horse-donkey hybrid, and has plenty of the benefits of hybrid vigor, but it's not a mule, and in many ways it differs from a mule physically. A hinny is smaller than the mule equivalent would be, and sports the limbs and head of a horse and the body and torso of a donkey. It still has long ears and a generally mule-like appearance, but an experienced mulero will be able to tell the difference. 

Take a jackass, though, and cross him with a female horse (mare), and you'll get a mule. Its head and legs will look more donkey-like, but its body will favor the horse. Mules are generally preferred to hinnies, and are much more common (not only because of that preference, but because breeding a larger and more - ahem! - well-endowed stallion to a small jenny is not without risk to the jenny). Mules and hinnies, being hybrids, are rarely fertile, and (officially, at least) there have been documented (but exceedingly rare) cases of female mules producing foals but not of male mules fathering any. (This all doesn't preclude mules and hinnies from having the parts AND the inclination to breed unless neutered, but it does prevent them from being successful.)

Now, your female mule (and hinny, too) is referred to as a molly mule, and the male mule / hinny is a john mule. 

Jasper, of uncertain parentage. Although sold to me as a mule, based on his full mane and tail, the clean lines of his legs, his short neck and his facial features, I suspect him to be a hinny. Either way, Jasper's a john.

Often I’ll run across historical photos depicting mules that are mis-captioned as donkeys or burros, and similarly, uninformed writers will too often refer to mules as donkeys. If you are writing about one or the other, it behooves you (yes, I did that on purpose) to know the difference. For the record, the Democrat mascot is the donkey, not a mule, and sloppy PR and marketing people get the images confused. 

In addition to mules and hinnies, horses can be crossed with zebras to produce get called "zorses." Although they are interesting looking and tough, and *sometimes* trainable, they're often dangerous and challenging even for the most experienced mule trainer. They don't have the benefit of fully-domesticated parentage on both sides. If they are the product of a female horse and a male zebra, they will have the advantage of being raised by a domestic mother, who will pass on much of her general attitude about humans to the foal, whereas a zebra mother will pass on her own wild inclinations to the baby. 

A zebra can also be bred to a donkey, and the resulting foal will be - you guessed it - a zonkey. Calmer and more pragmatic than a zorse, they can still be a handful. Zebras themselves are notoriously cantankerous souls, even if raised in captivity, and if not handled consistently and regularly they can revert back to wild very easily. This time last year, tragically, a zebra in Ohio bit its owner's arm nearly completely off. They're quick to bite and quick to kick, and savage when they do either. Remember - these are the creatures that fight off lions and hyenas and other predators in their native lands. 

For comparison's sake, here's Julie, a horse. Compare ear length, tail, angle of hip and shoulder, brow prominence, legs, neck length, and arch of the crest. 

So there you have it: mollies and johns and hinnies and jennies and jacks and mules and more. 

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