• Ancestors

  
  There are many ways to portray ancestory. The standard pedigree is the most usual. However, family trees and lineages are also very useful as the can show many associations not previously noticed in a standard pedigree.
  

  • Pedigrees
  • Lineages
  • Family trees

• Breeding Plans

  
  Many types of breeding programs are used in producing animals, such as inbreeding- its variations such as closebreeding and linebreeding- outcrossing, crossbreeding and hybridization. Today we must also include cloning as well.

  • Inbreeding
  • Closebreeding
  • Linebreeding
  • Crossbreeding
  • Outcrossing
  • Hybrid
  • Clone

HYBRIDIZATION is the mating of animals from two different, but compatible species.

The mating of a horse and a donkey results in the mule, one such hybrid. Generally the offspring of such hybridizationis infertile.

Several female mules have produced offspring when mated with a purebred horse or donkey. Since 1527 there have been more than 60 documented cases of foals born to female mules around the world. There are no recorded cases of fertile mule stallions.

Mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes that are a mixture of one from each parent. The different structure and number usually prevents the chromosomes from pairing up properly and creating successful embryos. In most fertile mule mares, the mare passes on a complete set of her maternal genes (i.e., from her horse/pony mother) to the foal; a female mule bred to a horse will therefore produce a 100% horse foal. Some examples of recorded fertile mules include:

Cornevin and Lesbre stated that in 1873 an Arab mule in Africa was bred to a stallion and produced female offspring. The parents and the offspring were sent to the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris. The mule produced a second female offspring sired by the same stallion and then two male offspring, one sired by a donkey and the other by a stallion. The female progeny were fertile, but their offspring were feeble and died at birth.

Cossar Ewart recorded an Indian case in which a female mule gave birth to a male colt.

The best documented fertile mule mare was "Krause" who produced two male offspring when bred back to her own sire (biological father). In July 1984, Krause, a female mule, made the AP news-wire. Krause gave birth to a foal sired by a donkey named Chester. This being a million to one event, the owners named the foal Blue Moon. In 1987 Krause gave birth to White Lightning.

In the 1920s, "Old Beck", a mare mule at Texas A&M, produced a mule daughter called "Kit". When Old Beck was bred to a horse stallion she produced a horse son (i.e., the horse stallion sired horse foals). When bred to a donkey, she produced mule offspring.

Likewise, a mare mule in Brazil has produced two 100% horse sons sired by a horse stallion.

In Morocco, a mare mule produced a male foal that was 75% donkey and 25% horse, i.e., she passed on a mixture of genes instead of passing on her maternal chromosomes in the expected way.

There is an unverified case of a mare mule that produced a mule daughter. The daughter was also fertile and produced a horse-like foal with some mule traits; this was dubbed a "hule". There are no reports as to whether the mule was fertile.

A comparable case is that of a fertile hinny (donkey mother, horse sire - the reverse of a mule) in China. Her offspring, named "Dragon Foal", was sired by a donkey. Scientists expected a donkey foal if the mother had passed on her maternal chromosomes in the same way as a mule. However, Dragon Foal resembles a strange donkey with mule-like features. Her chromosomes and DNA tests confirm that she is a previously undocumented combination.