Jacks Breeding Mares to Get Mule Colts Again

Offspring of a male donkey and a female person horse

Mule
Conservation status
Domesticated
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	Equidae
Tribe:	Equini
Genus:	Equus
Species:	E. africanus asinus♂ × Eastward. ferus caballus♀
Synonyms
Equus mulus

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey (jack) and a female horse (mare).^{[1] [2]} Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two showtime-generation hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny, which is the offspring of a female donkey (jenny) and a male horse (stallion).

The size of a mule and work to which it is put depend largely on the breeding of the mule'southward mother (dam). Mules can be lightweight, medium weight, or when produced from draft mares, of moderately heavy weight.^{[iii] : 85–87} Mules are reputed to exist more patient, hardy, and long-lived than horses, and are described as less obstinate and more intelligent than donkeys.^{[4] : five}

Biology [edit]

The mule is valued because, while information technology has the size and basis-roofing ability of its dam, it is stronger than a equus caballus of similar size and inherits the endurance and disposition of the donkey sire, tending to require less feed than a horse of similar size. Mules also tend to exist more than independent than most domesticated equines other than its parental species, the donkey.

The median weight range for a mule is between about 370 and 460 kg (820 and 1,000 lb).^[five] While a few mules can conduct live weight upward to 160 kg (353 lb), the superiority of the mule becomes apparent in their additional endurance.^[6]

In general, a mule can be packed with dead weight up to 20% of its body weight, or around 90 kg (198 lb).^[vi] Although it depends on the individual animal, mules trained by the Army of Islamic republic of pakistan are reported to be able to carry up to 72 kg (159 lb) and walk 26 km (sixteen.2 mi) without resting.^[7] The average equine in general can carry up to roughly 30% of its body weight in live weight, such as a rider.^[eight]

A female mule that has estrus cycles, and which could thus in theory comport a fetus, is called a "molly" or "Molly mule", though the term is sometimes used to refer to female person mules in full general. Pregnancy is rare, but tin occasionally occur naturally, besides as through embryo transfer. A male mule is properly chosen a "horse mule", though oft chosen a "john mule", which is the correct term for a gelded mule. A young male person mule is called a "mule colt", and a young female is called a "mule filly".^[9]

Characteristics [edit]

With its short, thick head, long ears, thin limbs, small, narrow hooves, and brusk mane, the mule shares characteristics of a ass. In acme and body, shape of neck and rump, uniformity of glaze, and teeth, information technology appears horse-similar.^[10] The mule occurs in all sizes, shapes, and conformations. Some mules resemble huge draft horses, sturdy Quarter Horses, fine-boned racing horses, shaggy ponies, and more.

The mule is an example of hybrid vigor.^[11] Charles Darwin wrote: "The mule e'er appears to me a nearly surprising animal. That a hybrid should possess more reason, retention, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to signal that art has here outdone nature."^[12]

The mule inherits from its sire the traits of intelligence, certain-footedness, toughness, endurance, disposition, and natural cautiousness. From its dam it inherits speed, conformation, and agility.^{[13] : 5–6, viii} Mules are reputed to exhibit a higher cerebral intelligence than their parent species, but robust scientific bear witness to back up these claims is lacking. Preliminary data exist from at least two show-based studies, but they rely on a limited set up of specialized cerebral tests and a pocket-sized number of subjects.^{[fourteen] [15]} Mules are generally taller at the shoulder than donkeys and have better endurance than horses, although a lower superlative speed.^{[16] [xiv]}

Handlers of working animals by and large find mules preferable to horses; mules testify more than patience nether the pressure of heavy weights, and their skin is harder and less sensitive than that of horses, rendering them more capable of resisting dominicus and pelting.^[10] Their hooves are harder than horses', and they bear witness a natural resistance to disease and insects. Many N American farmers with clay soil found mules superior as plow animals.

Color and size diversity [edit]

Mules exist in a variety of colors and sizes; these mules had a draft mare for a mother.

Mules occur in a variety of configurations, sizes, and colors. Minis weigh under 200 lb (91 kg), and other types range up to and over i,000 lb (454 kg). The coats of mules have the same varieties as those of horses. Common colors are sorrel, bay, black, and gray. Less common are white, roan, palomino, dun, and buckskin. Least common are paint or tobiano patterns. Mules from Appaloosa mares produce wildly colored mules, much similar their Appaloosa equus caballus relatives, but with even more wildly skewed colors. The Appaloosa colour is produced by a complex of genes known as the leopard complex. Mares homozygous for this factor complex bred to any color donkey will produce a spotted mule.

Distribution and use [edit]

Mules historically were used past armies to ship supplies, occasionally every bit mobile firing platforms for smaller cannons, and to pull heavier field guns with wheels over mountainous trails such as in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan State of war.^[17]

The Food and Agriculture Arrangement of the United Nations reports that China was the top market for mules in 2003, closely followed by Mexico and many Cardinal and Due south American nations.

Fertility [edit]

Mules and hinnies accept 63 chromosomes, a mixture of the horse's 64 and the ass'due south 62. The different structure and number usually prevents the chromosomes from pairing upward properly and creating successful embryos, rendering most mules infertile.

A few mare mules have produced offspring when mated with a purebred horse or ass.^{[18] [nineteen]} Herodotus gives an business relationship of such an effect every bit an sick omen of Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480 BC: "There happened as well a portent of another kind while he was still at Sardis—a mule brought along young and gave birth to a mule" (Herodotus The Histories vii:57), and a mule's giving birth was a often recorded portent in antiquity, although scientific writers also doubted whether it was really possible (meet e.g. Aristotle, Historia animalium, vi.24; Varro, De re rustica, 2.1.28).

As of Oct 2002, only 60 cases of mules birthing foals had been documented since 1527.^[19] In China in 2001, a mare mule produced a filly.^[20] In Morocco in early 2002 and Colorado in 2007, mare mules produced colts.^{[19] [21] [22]} Blood and pilus samples from the Colorado birth verified that the mother was indeed a mule and the foal was indeed her offspring.^[22]

A 1939 commodity in the Periodical of Heredity describes two offspring of a fertile mare mule named "Quondam Bec", which was owned at the fourth dimension past Texas A&K University in the belatedly 1920s. One of the foals was a female person, sired by a jack. Unlike her female parent, she was sterile. The other, sired by a 5-gaited Saddlebred stallion, exhibited no characteristics of any donkey. That equus caballus, a stallion, was bred to several mares, which gave nascence to alive foals that showed no characteristics of the donkey.^[23] In a more contempo instance, a group from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 1995 described a female mule that was significant for a seventh time, having previously produced two ass sires, two foals with the typical 63 chromsomes of mules, and several horse stallions that had produced four foals. The three of the latter available for testing each bore 64 horse-like chromosomes. These foals phenotypically resembled horses, though they diameter markings absent-minded from the sires known lineages, and 1 had ears noticeably longer than those typical of her sire'due south brood. The elder 2 equus caballus-like foals had proved fertile at the fourth dimension of publication, with their progeny beingness typical of horses.^[24]

History [edit]

The mule is "the most common and oldest known manmade hybrid."^{[25] [26]} It was likely invented in ancient times in what is at present Turkey. They were common in Arab republic of egypt by 3000 BCE.^[25] Homer noted their inflow in Asia Minor in the Iliad in 800 BCE. Mules are mentioned in the Bible (Samuel 2:18:nine, Kings 1:18:5, Zacharia 14:15, Psalms 32:9). Christopher Columbus brought mules to the New World.^[26] George Washington is known every bit the father of the American mule due to his success in producing 57 mules at his habitation at Mount Vernon. At the time, mules were not mutual in the United States, but Washington understood their value, every bit they were "more than docile than donkeys and cheap to maintain."^[27] In the 19th century, they were used in diverse capacities every bit typhoon animals - on farms, especially where clay made the soil slippery and sticky; pulling culvert boats; and famously for pulling, oftentimes in teams of 20 or more animals, wagonloads of borax out of Death Valley, California from 1883 to 1889. The wagons were among the largest ever pulled by typhoon animals, designed to acquit 10 short tons (9 metric tons) of borax ore at a fourth dimension.^[28]

Modern usage [edit]

In the second one-half of the 20th century, widespread usage of mules declined in industrialized countries. The use of mules for farming and transportation of agricultural products largely gave way to steam-, and so gasoline-powered, tractors and trucks.

Mules are still used extensively to transport cargo in rugged, roadless regions, such as the big wilderness areas of California's Sierra Nevada mountains or the Pasayten Wilderness of northern Washington. Commercial pack mules are used recreationally, such as to supply mountaineering base camps, and as well to supply trail-building and maintenance crews, and backcountry footbridge-edifice crews.^[29] As of July 2014, at to the lowest degree xvi commercial mule pack stations are in business concern in the Sierra Nevada.^[thirty] The Angeles chapter of the Sierra Social club has a mule pack department that organizes hiking trips with supplies carried past mules.^[31]

During the Soviet–Afghan War, mules were used to carry weapons and supplies over Afghanistan's rugged terrain to the mujahideen.^[32]

Virtually 3.5 million donkeys and mules are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide.^[33]

Mule trains have been function of working portions of transportation links every bit recently as 2005 by the World Nutrient Plan.^[34]

Trains [edit]

A British mule railroad train during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Due south Africa

A "mule train" is a continued or unconnected line of pack mules, usually carrying cargo. Considering of the mule's ability to carry at least every bit much as a equus caballus, its trait of being sure-footed along with tolerance of poorer, coarser foods and abilities to tolerate barren terrains, mule trains were common caravan organized means of animate being-powered bulk transport back into preclassical times. In many climate and circumstantial instances, an equivalent string of pack horses would take to carry more fodder and sacks of loftier-energy grains such equally oats, so could behave less cargo. In modernistic times, strings of sure-footed mules take been used to carry riders in unsafe but scenic backcountry terrain such as excursions into canyons.

Pack trains were instrumental in opening up the American W, as they could conduct upward to 250 lb (110 kg), survive on rough provender,^[a] did non crave feed, and could operate in the arid, higher elevations of the Rockies, serving as the main cargo means to the due west from Missouri during the heyday of the North American fur trade. Their use antedated the move west into the Rockies equally colonial Americans sent out the first fur trappers and explorers past the Appalachians, who were then followed west by high-chance-taking settlers by the 1750s (such every bit Daniel Boone), who led an increasing flood of emigrants who began pushing west over into southern New York, and through the gaps of the Allegheny into the Ohio State (the lands of western Province of Virginia and the Province of Pennsylvania), into Tennessee and Kentucky before and particularly after the American Revolution.

Gallery [edit]

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  SS Mexican unloading The states Army mules in Naples, Italy, in September, 1944

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Clone [edit]

In 2003, researchers at University of Idaho and Utah State University produced the commencement mule clone every bit office of Projection Idaho.^[35] The inquiry team included Gordon Wood, professor of creature and veterinarian scientific discipline at the University of Idaho; Kenneth Fifty. White, Utah State University professor of beast science; and Dirk Vanderwall, University of Idaho assistant professor of brute and veterinary science. The infant mule, Idaho Gem, was born May 4. Information technology was the commencement clone of a hybrid beast. Veterinarian examinations of the foal and its surrogate mother showed them to exist in good health soon afterwards nascency. The foal's DNA comes from a fetal cell culture first established in 1998 at the University of Idaho.

See likewise [edit]

• African wild ass
• Twoscore acres and a mule
• Headless Mule, a cursed woman in Brazilian folklore
• Jennet, a small-scale Spanish horse
• Kiang, the Tibetan ass
• List of genetic hybrids
• No Mule's Fool
• Onager, the Asiatic wild donkey
• Zebroid

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Rough provender ways mules, donkeys, and other asses, like many wild ungulates such equally diverse deer species, can tolerate eating pocket-size shrubs, lichens, and some co-operative-laden tree foliages and obtaining nutrition from such. In contrast, the digestive organization of horses and to a lesser extent cattle are more dependent upon grasses, and evolved in climates where grasslands involved stands of grains and their high-free energy seed-heads.

Citations [edit]

1. ^ "Mule Solar day: A Local Legacy". americaslibrary.gov. Library of Congress. 18 December 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
2. ^ "What is a mule?". The Donkey Sanctuary.
3. ^ Ensminger, M. Due east. (1990). Horses and Horsemanship: Animal Agronomics Series (Sixth ed.). Danville, IL: Interstate. ISBN0-8134-2883-1.
4. ^ Jackson, Louise A (2004). The Mule Men: A History of Stock Packing in the Sierra Nevada. Missoula, MT: Mountain Printing. ISBN0-87842-499-7.
5. ^ "Mule". The Encyclopædia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Full general. Vol. XVII. Henry G. Allen and Company. 1888. p. 15.
6. ^ ^{a b} "Hunter'southward Specialties: More With Wayne Carlton On Elk Hunting". hunterspec.com. Hunter'due south Specialties. 2009. Archived from the original on 8 October 2010. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
7. ^ Khan, Aamer Ahmed (19 October 2005). "Beasts ease burden of convulse victims". BBC. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
8. ^ American Endurance Ride Conference (November 2003). "Chapter 3, Section IV: Size". Endurance Rider's Handbook. AERC. Archived from the original on 15 May 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2008.
9. ^ "Longear Lingo". lovelongears.com. American Donkey and Mule Club. 22 May 2013. Retrieved sixteen July 2014.
10. ^ ^{a b} One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication at present in the public domain:Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mule". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. xviii (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 959–960.
11. ^ Chen, Z. Jeffrey; Birchler, James A., eds. (2013). Polyploid and Hybrid Genomics. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-0-470-96037-0 . Retrieved sixteen July 2014.
12. ^ Darwin, Charles (1879). What Mr. Darwin Saw in His Voyage Circular the World in the Ship 'Beagle' . New York: Harper & Bros. pp. 33–34. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
13. ^ Hauer, John, ed. (2014). The Natural Superiority of Mules. Skyhorse. ISBN978-1-62636-166-ix . Retrieved xvi July 2014.
14. ^ ^{a b} Proops, Leanne; Faith Burden; Britta Osthaus (18 July 2008). "Mule cognition: a case of hybrid vigor?". Animal Cognition. 12 (1): 75–84. doi:10.1007/s10071-008-0172-1. PMID 18636282. S2CID 27962537.
15. ^ Giebel; et al. (1958). "Visuelles Lernvermögen bei Einhufern". Zoologische Jahrbücher. Physiologie. 67: 487–520.
16. ^ "Which is taller, a Mule or a Horse?". Purelyfacts.
17. ^ Explanation of Mule Battery WDL11495.png Library of Congress
18. ^ Savory, Theodore H (1970). "The Mule". Scientific American. 223 (half-dozen): 102–109. Bibcode:1970SciAm.223f.102S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1270-102.
19. ^ ^{a b c} Kay, Katty (2 October 2002). "Morocco'due south phenomenon mule". BBC News . Retrieved 5 February 2009.
20. ^ Rong, Ruizhang; Cai, Huedi; Yang, Xiuqin; Wei, Jun (October 1985). "Fertile mule in Cathay and her unusual foal". Journal of the Imperial Society of Medicine. 78 (10): 821–25. doi:ten.1177/014107688507801006. PMC1289946. PMID 4045884.
21. ^ "Befuddling Nascence: The Case of the Mule's Foal". National Public Radio. 26 July 2007. Retrieved 5 February 2009.
22. ^ ^{a b} Lofholm, Nancy (19 September 2007). "Mule's foal fools genetics with 'incommunicable' nascence". Denver Mail.
23. ^ Anderson, W. S. (1939). "Fertile Mare Mules". Journal of Heredity. 30 (12): 549–551. doi:x.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a104657.
24. ^ Henry, M.; Gastal, E.L.; Pinheiro, L.Due east.L.; Guimarmes, S.E.F. (1995). "Mating Pattern and Chromosome Analysis of a Mule and Her Offspring". Biology of Reproduction. 52 (Equine Reproduction Half dozen – Monograph Series ane): 273–279. doi:10.1093/biolreprod/52.monograph_series1.273.
25. ^ ^{a b} "History of the Mule". American Mule Museum . Retrieved 15 February 2020.
26. ^ ^{a b} "Mules, mankind share a mutual history in modern world". The Daily Herald . Retrieved 15 Feb 2020.
27. ^ Chernow, Ron (2010). Washington: A Life. New York: The Penguin Press. pp. 483–484. ISBN978-i-59420-266-7. OCLC 535490473.
28. ^ "Mules hauling a 22,000lb boiler". Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
29. ^ Jackson, Louise A (2004). The Mule Men: A History of Stock Packing in the Sierra Nevada. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press. ISBN 0-87842-499-7.
30. ^ "Members of the Eastern Sierra Packers". easternsierrapackers.com. Eastern Sierra Packers. 18 Jan 2009. Retrieved xvi July 2014.
31. ^ "Mule Pack Section, Angeles Chapter, Sierra Gild". angeles.sierraclub.org. Angeles Chapter Sierra Club. 18 April 2014. Retrieved sixteen July 2014.
32. ^ Bearden, Milt (2003) The Main Enemy, The Inside story of the CIA's Terminal showdown with the KGB. Presidio Printing. ISBN 0345472500
33. ^ "FAOSTAT". world wide web.fao.org . Retrieved 25 October 2019.
34. ^ "Mule railroad train provides lifeline for remote quake survivors". www.wfp.org. World Nutrient Program.
35. ^ "Project Idaho". University of Idaho. 29 May 2003. Archived from the original on 9 Baronial 2009. Retrieved 16 July 2014.

Farther reading [edit]

• Arnold, Watson C. (2008). "The Mule: The Worker that "Can't Get No Respect"". Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 112: 34–50. doi:10.1353/swh.2008.0002. S2CID 143167549.
• Buchholz, Katharina (16 August 2013). "Colorado miracle mule foal lived short life, but was well-loved". Denver Post . Retrieved 16 July 2014.
• Ellenberg, George B. (2007). Mule South to Tractor South: Mules, Machines, and the Transformation of the Cotton South. Academy of Alabama Press. ISBN9780817357726.
• Chandley, A. C.; Clarke, C. A. (1985). "Cum mula peperit". Journal of the Imperial Gild of Medicine. 78 (ten): 800–801. doi:10.1177/014107688507801003. PMC1289943. PMID 4045882.
• Loftus, Bill (August 2003). "It's a Mule: UI produces kickoff equine clone". Hither Nosotros Accept Idaho: The Academy of Idaho Mag. University of Idaho: 12–15. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
• Lukach, Marking (xi September 2013). "There Is a Human being Wandering Around California With three Mules". The Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Grouping. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
• Rong, R.; Chandley, A. C.; Vocal, J.; McBeath, South.; Tan, P. P.; Bai, Q.; Speed, R. M. (1988). "A fertile mule and hinny in China". Cytogenetic and Genome Research. 47 (3): 134–9. doi:10.1159/000132531. PMID 3378453.
• Williams, John O; Speelman, Sanford R (1948). "Mule production". Farmers' Bulletin. U.S. Department of Agriculture. 1341 . Retrieved 16 July 2014. Hosted past the UNT Digital Library. Originally published by the U.S. Government Printing Part.

External links [edit]

Await up mule in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• American Donkey and Mule Lodge
• American Mule Clan
• British Mule Gild Archived 25 Nov 2017 at the Wayback Machine
• Canadian Donkey & Mule Association

stradfordformon.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule

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