Bearing prominent black and white striped legs, striped face and brown-haired body of a donkey, the foal was named Pippi after the fabled Pippi Longstocking — a stripe-socked girl with superhuman strength, and a wealth of attitude — created by the Swedish children’s author, Astrid Lindgren.
Pippi’s mother is a donkey named Sarah, and her father Zeke is a zebra.
Pippi with mother Sarah and father Zeke.
The Chestatee Wildlife Preserve has had calls and visitors pouring in from across the globe including France, England, Egypt, and Russia to see this spectacular zedonk, and can’t believe their own eyes at the wonder of this little nature.
It’s not uncommon for male donkeys mating with female horses to produce mules, but it’s very rare for a female donkey and a male zebra to mate, and extremely difficult to produce a viable, healthy zedonk, which makes them all the more rare.
Pippi with her mother Sarah
Pippi’s father Zeke
C.W. Wathen who is the owner of the preserve, said handlers at the preserve find her easy to manage, and in addition to her signature striped legs, Pippi has several behavioral characteristics of both a zebra and donkey.
“After her third day of life she spoke — and she speaks zebra.” laughed Wathen. “It’s crazy.”
“The sure part of the zebra in her is when she lays down.” Wathen explained. “She is sitting on all fours, she’s alert and ready to get up.”
The baby zedonk also has a fair number of donkey traits. “She is so calm, that’s where the donkey comes in.” said Wathen.
Pippi’s birth and heritage came as a complete surprise. The preserve says that the animals have shared the same fields for more than 30 years, but this is the first time that any cross-breeding or zedonks have been born there.
“We were expecting a baby donkey and had been worried that something was wrong, because the mother was way overdue.” said Wathen.
“We never thought about having a zedonk, so I guess that goes to show you that anything is possible.”
Dr. Benson, a licensed veterinarian in Georgia who cares for animals at the preserve speculates that Pippi could live into her 20′s and would not be able to reproduce, but only time will tell for certain.
The preserve where the little filly lives is a non-profit organization dedicated to rescuing animals.
In addition to the zebras and donkeys, the 20 acre non-profit Preserve is home to 12 white Siberian Tigers — with only 200 remaining in the world today — as well as black leopards, mountain lions, tigers, albino wallabies, monkeys, cockatiels, ostriches, alligators , giant tortoises, a wolf cub, a baby grizzly bear, and a camel named Sebastian.
About Zebroids
A zebroid — also called a zebra mule and zebrule — is the generic name for all zebra hybrids, which are the offspring of any cross between a zebra and any other equine, essentially being a zebra hybrid. In most cases, the sire is a zebra stallion.
Offspring of a donkey sire and zebra mare, called a zebra hinny or donkra, do exist but are rare.
The extinct quagga was also crossed with horses and donkeys.
A zonkey is a cross between a zebra and a donkey, but common terms also include zedonk, zebonkey (or zebronkey), zebrinny, zebrula, zebrass, and zebadonk.
Zedonks are very rare, but In South Africa they occur where zebras and donkeys are found in proximity to each other. Like mules, however, they’re generally genetically unable to breed due to an odd number of chromosomes disrupting meiosis.
A zorse is the offspring of a male zebra and a female horse, which are also called a zebrula, zebrule, zebra mule or golden zebra. The rarer reverse pairing is sometimes called a horbra, hebra, zebrinny or zebret. Like most other animal hybrids, the zorse is typically sterile.
The zony is the offspring of a zebra stallion and a pony mare. Medium-sized pony mares are preferred to produce riding zonies, but zebras have been crossed with smaller pony breeds such as the Shetland, resulting in so-called ‘Zetlands.’
Zebroids have been bred since the 19th century, and Charles Darwin noted several zebra hybrids in his works.
When zebras are crossbred, they frequently develop some form of dwarfism. Breeding of different branches of the equine family, which does not occur in the wild, generally results in infertile offspring. The combination of sire and dam also affects the offspring.
Zebroid Characteristics
Zebroids physically resemble their non-zebra parent, but are striped like a zebra. The stripes don’t generally cover the entire body, and might be confined to the legs or spread onto parts of the body or neck.
If the non-zebra parent was patterned — such as a roan, Appaloosa, Pinto horse, paint, piebald, or skewbald — this pattern might be passed down to the zebroid, in which case the stripes are usually confined to non-white areas.
The alternative name golden zebra relates to the interaction of zebra striping and a horse’s bay or chestnut color to give a zebra-like black-on-bay or black-on-chestnut pattern that superficially resembles the quagga. In zebra-ass hybrids, there is usually a dorsal (back) stripe and a belly stripe.
Zorses combine the zebra striping overlaid on colored areas of the hybrid’s coat, and are most often bred using solid color horses. If the horse parent is piebald (black and white) or skewbald pinto (other color and white), the zorse may inherit the dominant depigmentation genes for white patches.
Tobiano — the most common white modifier found in the horse — directly interacts with the zorse coat to give the white markings. Only the non-depigmented areas will have zebra striping, resulting in a zorse with white patches and striped patches. This effect is seen in the zebroid Eclyse born in Stukenbrock, Germany in 2007 to a zebra mare called Eclipse and a stallion called Ulysses.
Eclyse the zorse
Zebroids are preferred over zebra for practical uses such as riding, because the zebra has a different body shape from a horse or donkey, and consequently it is difficult to find tack to fit a zebra.
However, a zebroid is usually inclined to be more temperamental than a purebred horse and can be difficult to handle. Zebras — being wild animals, and not domesticated like horses and donkeys — pass on their wild animal traits to their offspring. While not typically very large, zebras are extremely strong and aggressive. Similarly, zorses have a strong temperament and can be aggressive.
Notable Zebroids
Various zebroids are bred today as riding and draft animals, and as curiosities in circuses and smaller zoos.
A zedonk at Colchester Zoo in England. Photo Sannse, Colchester Zoo, 2 June 2004.
A zorse, or more accurately a zony, was born at Eden Ostrich World, Cumbria, England in 2001 after a zebra was left in a field with a Shetland pony. It was referred to as a Zetland.
According to local lore, brown zorses have been spotted in the foothills of the Appalachians in and around Charlottesville, Virginia.
A zebra stallion is usually paired with a horse mare or ass mare, but in 2005, a Burchell’s zebra named Allison produced a zonkey called Alex sired by a donkey at Highland plantation in the parish of Saint Thomas, Barbados. Alex, born April 21st 2005, is the first zonkey in Barbados.
Zorses are bred in Africa and used for trekking on Mount Kenya.
A zorse.
In 1815, Lord Morton mated a quagga stallion to a chestnut Arabian mare, producing a female hybrid which resembled both parents. This provoked the interest of Cossar Ewart, Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh (1882–1927) and a keen geneticist.
Ewart crossed a zebra stallion with pony mares to investigate the theory of telegony, or paternal impression.
In Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin mentioned 4 colored drawings of hybrids between the ass and zebra. He also wrote “In Lord Morton’s famous hybrid from a chestnut mare and male quagga, the hybrid, and even the pure offspring subsequently produced from the mare by a black Arabian sire, were much more plainly barred across the legs than is even the pure quagga.”
In his book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Darwin described a hybrid ass-zebra specimen in the British Museum as being dappled on its flanks. He also mentioned a “triple hybrid, from a bay mare, by a hybrid from a male ass and female zebra” displayed at London Zoo. This would have required the zebroid sire to be fertile.
A zorse in an 1899 photograph from J.C. Ewart’s The Penycuik Experiments.
“Romulus: one year old.”
During the South African War, the Boers crossed the Chapman’s zebra with the pony to produce an animal for transport work, chiefly for hauling guns. A specimen was captured by British forces and presented to King Edward VII by Lord Kitchener, and was photographed by W S Berridge.
Zebras are resistant to sleeping sickness, whereas purebred horses and ponies are not, and it was hoped that the zebra mules would inherit this resistance.
Grevy’s zebra has been crossed with the Somali ass in the early 20th century.
Zorses were bred by the US Government and reported in Genetics in Relation to Agriculture by E. B. Babcock and R. E. Clausen in the early 20th century, in an attempt to investigate inheritance and telegony. The experiments were also reported in The Science of Life by H G Wells, J Huxley and G P Wells (c. 1929).
Zebra-horse hybrid foal with quagga-like markings,
Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring, England.
The 1970′s continued the interest in zebra crosses. A New York Times article from June 16 1973 mentioned the birth of a cross between a zebra and a donkey at the Jerusalem Zoo and called it a ‘hamzab.’
The Colchester Zoo in England bred zedonks in the 1970′s, at first by accident and later to create a disease-resistant riding and draft animal. The experiment was discontinued when zoos became more conservation-minded. A number of hybrids were kept at the zoo after this, and the last died in 2009. One adult and a foal remain at the tourist attraction of Groombridge Place near Tonbridge in Kent.
Zedonk Pippi
