Mules pulling a hayride wagon at a Missouri pumpkin patch caught my eyes. Noting their size, the driver told me his hinnies were draft mules. The nomenclature used when donkeys and horses breed is unusual. Olivia Young provides the hows and whys of these crossbred hybrids from the family Equidae and genus Equus.
Donkeys and mules are tough to tell apart just by looking at them. When a jack mates with a mare a john is born. Reverse that and the foal is a hinny.
Most mules and hinnies are sterile because they’re born with an odd number of chromosomes (63, between the horse’s 64 and donkey’s 62).”
Source: Treehugger, October 20, 2022. Link. Missouri designated the Missouri mule as the official state animal in 1995. South Carolina also adopted the mule as a state symbol.