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Golden oranges and snow on Old Baldy, California Date issued: 1930 - 1945 ⁰

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The other day, I went down the rabbit hole of "cute donkeys" and came up with my head full of things I didn't know about mules (the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey), and why they were once so coveted as work animals.

Brace for info dump, while enjoying this lovely photo of a trio of draft mules.

The explanation is hybrid vigour (when hybrid offspring have enhanced traits compared to its parents):

Mules are stronger, hardier, healthier, have better endurance, harder hooves, sturdier skin and can handle extreme weather better than horses or donkeys. They are also more patient, more intelligent, and easier to handle than either of their parent species. Horses may be faster, but that's about the single thing they're better at than a mule of the same size.

So mules, being all around nicer to work with and getting you more work for the same amount of feed, and with less hassle, were preferred for just about every job purpose.

Habby du Magnou, a Poitevin Mulassier mare, and her daughter Lady du Magnou, a rare Poitevin mule

But since horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62, mules end up with 63 chromosomes, which means they are almost invariably sterile. That's because biology gets very confused when trying to split an uneven number of chromosomes neatly in half to create germ cells. There are a few documented exceptions of fertile mule mares (never stallions), but they are very, very rare. So you have to keep crossbreeding the two parent species to produce them, usually by breeding a donkey sire (jack) to a horse dam (mare). This is because it's easier for a 32 chromosome egg to incorporate a 31 chromosome sperm into a viable zygote (fertilised egg) than vice versa.

Because of this, there was (and still is) in France a breed of absolutely massive draft horses, the Poitevin Mulassier, and a breed of big-ass donkeys (pun intended, but honestly they're arguably the largest donkeys in the world, and shaggy like Highland cattle), the Baudet du Poitou, two breeds whose main purpose was to breed the enormous and super-strong Poitevin mule.

The Poitevin mule

This absolute unit was the must-have work-animal for all kinds of farm and industrial work for centuries, and a significant French export, until mechanisation made these magnificent creatures obsolete.

With no demand for the Poitevin mule , its parent breeds dwindled, almost to the brink of extinction. Determined conservation efforts during the last few decades are slowly bringing their numbers back up, but they're very far from their heyday, when some 20,000 Poitevin mules were born annually.

The Poitevin Mulassier

Both the parent breeds are still endangered, which means most of the current effort is directed into bringing up the numbers of Poitevin horses and Poitou donkeys. This means breeding horses to horses and donkeys to donkeys, with very few breeding opportunities allowed to produce the Poitevin mule. Only about 20 of those are born each year.

The Baudet du Poitou

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GVH VERVADA,

trakehner mare

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(by Louis Gaudiau)

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by Evgeniy Erohin

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Bled, Slovenia by Neven Krcmarek

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Hemlock Heaven by Donnie Rosie

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Alpine mountain stream 23/? - Tour de Monte Rosa, July 2021

photo by: nature-hiking

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the coyote den; mono lake, california

follow my adventures on instagram & twitter

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by Kyle Bonallo (Instagram)

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gyroid farm sign ✿ by Ro_crossing on twt

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OMFG

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Denn, your horse HD mod is amazing, thank you so much for sharing! I did have one question... on your website you have two shine markings showing but when I go to download them it takes me to one download for an Arabian shine, which is not shown on your site. Is that the wrong file or does the one file contain all three markings? If so, what body section can the two shines shown on your site be found?

Hey Bre! I realize that I do have 2 shine markings showing but I think what happened was I was only able to find one of them :( I did a complete wipe of my PC in early 2020 so I no longer have access to anything aside from those few files that I was able to recover from my google drives. If I ever find it I'll try to make a post and update it on my website. I'm glad you like the mod! I spent a lot of time working on it over the years and I felt it would be such a shame to just keep it for myself :)

@riddikulusims

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California Plants

Almond trees retextured from cherry trees was it? These are not without their variety of issues as they were my first and only attempt at creating a tree retexture. Perfect for California orchards and possibly could be passed for olive trees? I've also included a texture override of the Red Sage plant that makes lovely dried grass for arid facilities.

I’m feeling sentimental tonight so special thanks to @sailleur for guiding me through the retexture process years ago. Thank you for the years of friendship and listening to me complain endlessly about just about everything you could possibly think of c:

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Denn Hanes 4K Horse Mod

Yet another horse mod variant. This one has been in the works since 2018 as a constantly updating project (this one is version 40 I believe?). I made this to fit my own tastes and preferences. The texture is 4K in resolution if I remember correctly. 

I wasn��t ever going to make this a public download but it’s been nearly two years since I completely wiped out my game and left it all behind, so I figured it would be a shame for my work to go to waste. I’m sure there are plenty of far superior mods out there today since I’ve been gone but working on this truly brought me joy and I hope someone else out there will be able to enjoy just as much as I did.

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