Donkey Breeds in Europe - Safeguard for Agricultural Varieties in ...

enthusiastic about mating with a female horse than a stallion is with a female donkey.
A characteristic of the hybrids
is that the male mule is sterile,
the mares can, in rare cases,
be fertile. The chance of successful
reproduction is greatest when
the female mule is mated with a
stallion.
Hinny, source: www.uni-leipzig.de
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Hinnies are the other way round:
the mother is a donkey, the father
a horse. Usually, they are smaller
than mules. As with mules, the
male hinny is sterile, the female
hinny can sometimes reproduce if
mated with a male donkey.
Domestication and Geographical range
The domestication of the donkey began in 7000-6000BC in, what is today, Libya in
North Africa. The domestic donkey is, thus, one of the few, African livestock species
still alive. Even today, donkeys are used far more by North African nomads
than by Bedouins.
In Egypt, the donkey was the most important animal and was kept in herds of up to
thousand animals. In the Nile valley,
the Nile donkey was domesticated already
in the 4000 BC. On grave pictures,
donkeys were often portrayed as
grey and with a shoulder cross. Until
the late Egyptian period (715-322BC)
no camels were in use, donkeys were
used as pack animals in trading caravans
from Egypt to Nubia. The nomads
appreciated their donkeys as pack
animals. The settled farmers also
found uses for donkeys: to carry, for
planting seeds, for threshing and milling
grains etc.
In the late Egyptian period the picture
of the donkey changed totally: the Wild
Ass was considered to be the embodiment
of the god Seth, who was not
only the guardian god of the Egyptian
kings but also the god of storms, evil
and the desert. The fact that this god
was identified with evil and other negativity
meant that the image of the donkey
changed, not just in Egypt but also
in many other cultures.
Seth; Phto:
www.rahorakhty.co.uk/magic/images/seth.h5.jpg
In Mesopotamia donkeys were used as draught and pack animals. They were even
used for ploughing. Until the introduction of horses and, thus, the mule, donkeys