All about Horses

   
My brother asked me to check some information about stallions and mules one day. The more I found, the more my city girl breeding told me I knew nothing about horses and the related species.  So here is some not so trivial trivia about horses that I pulled from wikipedia.  Please please please, if any of you are horse/animal experts and I have this wrong contact me OK?

Stallion an older male horse that has NOT been castrated (is still fertile)

Gelding  an older male horse that has been neutered

Filly  a young female horse under the age of five

Mare a female horse over the age of five

Foal: offspring under a year old.
    After one year it is called a Yearling

A group of colts is called a "rag"

Jack:  Male Donkey
Jenny  Female Donkey

And yes for all you guys who are dying to say it; a larger donkey is also called an ass from its species name Equus asinus

A smaller donkey is sometimes called a burro

Mule: the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. 

Hinny: the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey

Mules are generally larger than a hinny

Mules and Hinnies are almost always sterile This is because donkeys have 62 chromosomes and horses have 64
Mules and Hinnies have 63 chromosomes each
There have been rare cases when mules have been fertile

Molly  A female mule  (Are we confused yet?)

Read about Morrocco's Miracle Mule

Finally, my son tells me that a Zonkey is a cross between a donkey and a zebra and are very rare. Wikipedia has a long article about them. It discusses the mating habits of horses in general and how the differences in the chromosomes make this species so rare. It also talks about Zeedonks and other crossbreeds if this is your thing.  The pictures are nice though.