Breeding: A donkey bred to a donkey produces a donkey. Donkey jacks are crossed on horse mares to produce mules, while the opposite cross (stallion x donkey jennet) gives a hinny. There are few pure breeds of donkey in the United States, where they are known by their sizes and types.
In addition to other donkeys, they will breed with horses and zebras, producing hybrid offspring. A jack that mates with a female horse will produce an animal called a mule, while a jenny and a male horse produce a hinny, according to the University of Miami.
The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, Equus africanus, and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, Equus africanus asinus, or as a separate species, Equus asinus.
Key facts about mules and hinnies
Mule: The result of a donkey stallion mating with a female horse. Mules tend to have the head of a donkey and the extremities of a horse.
The African wild ass (Equus africanus) is the wild ancestor of the donkey. Because the earliest donkeys were found in ancient Egypt, archaeologists concluded that they were domesticated from resident Nubian wild ass (E. africanus africanus) by villagers inhabiting the Egyptian Nile Valley.
A donkey is its own unique species while a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey, specifically a male donkey and a female horse (a mare). Further, mules are sterile and cannot reproduce.
No, Horses and donkeys are two different species but belong to the same family, Equidae and the genus Equus. They both have different numbers of chromosomes. Although they look quite similar in appearance, there are many dissimilarities.
They will have the instinct to mate with other mules, donkeys, horses, and other animals, but they can't produce offspring. What is this?
A zorse is the offspring of a zebra stallion and a horse mare. This cross is also called a zebrose, zebrula, zebrule, or zebra mule. The rarer reverse pairing is sometimes called a hebra, horsebra, zebrinny, or zebra hinny. Like most other animal hybrids, the zorse is sterile.
A zonkey, a cross between a donkey and a zebra, seen in Colombia. Mix a zebra and a horse, and you get a zorse. Swap the horse for a donkey, and you have yourself a zonkey.
Donkeys are descended from the African wild ass. They were likely first bred around 5,000 years ago in Egypt or Mesopotamia. A mule, on the other hand, is a hybrid animal. Mule foals are the offspring of female horses and male donkeys (a "jack" -- hence the word "jackass").
If you have a male Donkey and female Zebra then you end up with a Zebadonk. Sadly the Zonkey is a sterile creature, similar to the Mule and Liger, so it cannot produce offspring of its own. Zonkeys can live in the wild though, although they are very rare and the majority of Zonkeys are found in zoos around the world.
#1: A Baby Donkey is Called a Foal!
Donkeys are called foals until they're about a year old. It doesn't matter whether the donkey is male or female, a baby donkey is called a foal. They're only foals until about a year old.
Mules and hinnies are the hybrids between donkeys (Equus asinus) and horses (Equus caballus).
A mule has 63 chromosomes, intermediate between the 64 of the horse and the 62 of the donkey. Mules are usually infertile for this reason. Pregnancy is rare, but can occasionally occur naturally, as well as through embryo transfer. A few mare mules have produced offspring when mated with a horse or donkey stallion.
Zebras are not donkeys. Like donkeys, zebras belong to the Equus genus of scientific animal classifications and they have a lot in common, but don't be mistaken, zebras and donkeys are not the same animals.
Okapis were only known to local people from 1901! Their velvet-like fur is WATERPROOF! These fascinating animals remained undiscovered until 1901, deep in Central Africa and look like a cross between a horse and a zebra.
In trees representing accepted notions of evolutionary descent, giraffes and zebras are placed on widely separate branches, so it is generally believed that the two are simply too far apart to produce hybrids. Thus, it is not surprising that there are no reports from researchers who tried to create such hybrids.
A zorse is a cross between a horse and a zebra. Zorses can be obtained by breeding a zebra with any type of normal horse.
Those mismatched chromosomes make it hard to make viable sperm and eggs. So mules are sterile because horse and donkey chromosomes are just too different. But they are alive because horse and donkey chromosomes are similar enough to mate.
The horse has 64 chromosomes (32 pairs), and the donkey has 62 (31 pairs). When they are mated, the mule receives 63 chromosomes (32 from the horse and 31 from the donkey). During meiosis, the chromosomes are not in pairs, and, as their number is halved, the sex cells usually end up without a complete set.
It is well known that horses and donkeys do occasionally mate with cattle (e.g., see videos below). Such mixed matings are fairly common events on ranches and other places where these animals are likely to come into regular contact.
Mules born from a donkey mother and horse father are known as hinnys and tend not to be as strong as mules. Ponies are horses, just a shorter variety.
All donkeys and horses evolved from a common ancestor, Dinohippus, who roamed the plains of North America some 10 million years ago. Since then, they have evolved into very different animals. As a result of this long evolution, donkeys are closer ancestors to zebras than they are to horses.
But while mules have turned out to be extremely valuable work animals, neither mules nor hinnies can mate among themselves to produce their own offspring because of their odd origins.