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Something More About Breeding Mules


Before I close this work, I desire to say something more about breeding

mules. It has long been a popular error that to get a good mule colt you

must breed from large mares. The average sized, compact mare, is by all

odds the superior animal to breed mules from. Experience has satisfied

me that very large mules are about as useless for army service as very

large men are for troopers. You can get no great amount of service out

of either. One is good at destroying rations; the other at lowering

haystacks and corn-bins. Of all the number we had in the army, I never

saw six of these large, overgrown mules that were of much service.

Indeed, I have yet to see the value in any animal that runs or rushes to

an overgrowth. The same is true with man, beast, or vegetable. I will

get the average size of either of them, and you will acknowledge the

superiority.



The only advantage these large mares may give to the mule is in the size

of the feet and bone that they may impart. The heavier you can get the

bone and feet, the better. And yet you can rarely get even this, and for

the reason that I have before given, that the mare, in nineteen cases

out of twenty, breeds close after the jack, more especially in the feet

and legs. It makes little difference how you cross mares and jacks, the

result is almost certain to be a horse's body, a jack's legs and feet, a

jack's ears, and, in most cases, a jack's marks.



Nature has directed this crossing for the best, since the closer the

mare breeds after the jack the better the mule. The highest marked

mules, and the deepest of the different colors, I have invariably found

to be the best. What is it, let us inquire, that makes the Mexican mule

hardy, trim, robust, well-marked after the jack, and so serviceable? It

is nothing more nor less than breeding from sound, serviceable, compact,

and spirited Mexican or mustang mares. You must, in fact, use the same

judgment in crossing these animals as you would if you wanted to produce

a good race or trotting horse.



We are told, in Mason and Skinner's Stud Book, that in breeding mules

the mares should be large barrelled small limbed, with a moderate-sized

head and a good forehead. This, it seems to me, will strike our officers

as a very novel recommendation. The mule's limbs and feet are the

identical parts you want as large as possible, as everyone that has had

much to do with the animal knows. You rarely find a mule that has legs

as large as a horse. But the mule, from having a horse's body, will

fatten and fill up, and become just as heavy as the body of an

average-sized horse. Having, then, to carry this extra amount of fat and

flesh on the slender legs and feet of a jackass, you can easily see what

the result must be. No; you will be perfectly safe in getting your mule

as large-legged as you can. And by all means let the mare you breed from

have a good, sound, healthy block of a foot. Then the colt will stand

some chance of inheriting a portion of it. It is natural that the larger

you get his feet the steadier he will travel. Some persons will tell you

that these small feet are natural, and are best adapted to the animal.

But they forget that the mule is not a natural animal, only an invention

of man. Let your mare and jack be each of the average size, the jack

well marked, and No. 1 of his kind, and I will take the product and wear

out any other style of breed. Indeed, you have only to appeal to your

better judgment to convince you as to what would result from putting a

jack, seven or eight hands high, to a mare of sixteen or more.



I have witnessed some curious results in mule breeding, and which it may

be well enough to mention here. I have seen frequent instances where one

of the very best jacks in the country had been put to mares of good

quality and spirit. Putting them to such contemptible animals seemed to

degrade them, to destroy their natural will and temper. The result was a

sort of bastard mule, a small-legged, small-footed, cowardly animal,

inheriting all the vices of the mule and none of the horse's virtues--

the very meanest of his kind.



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