Why do people breed hinnies?

So a hinny is sort of the opposite of a mule. A mule is big, because its mother is a mare, whereas a hinny is small, because its mother is a jenny. And from what I have read of hinnies, they do not have any of the advantages of mules. Yet if they exist, it must be because people breed them, right? A stallion would not seek out a jenny on his own, would he? Has anyone heard of uses for hinnies, that leads people to breed them?

Yes, people do breed them. Maybe it's so little kids can ride a tiny horse, kind of like at those travelling petting zoos.

I've mostly heard of people not breeding hinnies for various reasons... Why Not Hinnies
Apparently it's more economical to breed mules, and the outcome (strength and temperament) is more predictable. I'm guessing it's also safer for the dam to be bred to a much smaller male than a much larger male... Hinnies tend to be slightly smaller and more horsey-looking than mules, but it can be difficult to tell them apart. So I guess for me the question would be, do you really want a stallion mounting your donkey? I feel sorry for her.

Jason Hernandez wrote:So a hinny is sort of the opposite of a mule. A mule is big, because its mother is a mare, whereas a hinny is small, because its mother is a jenny. And from what I have read of hinnies, they do not have any of the advantages of mules. Yet if they exist, it must be because people breed them, right? A stallion would not seek out a jenny on his own, would he? Has anyone heard of uses for hinnies, that leads people to breed them?

There is a lot of "commonly known" information about hinnies that is just more or less repeated nonsense.

Size doesn't really have much to do with whether the animal is a mule or hinny. Donkeys come in all sizes from little miniatures all the way up to very large Mammoth size. So depending on what size pony or horse mare you use and what size donkey jack you use, will determine what size mule you produce or what size hinny you produce with a jenny and stallion.

So mules come in all sizes, you can breed a miniature horse mare to a miniature Jack and get a miniature mule, or even a draft horse mare with a Mammoth donkey jack and get a draft horse size mule. Growing up I had a very small pony sized mule(about 10hhs). He was the cross of a pony mare and a small jack.

Yes sometimes hinnies happen "accidentally" though usually stallions are not naturally very interested in jennies, some are though. Some people do deliberately breed hinnies and claim they are no different than mules. I've heard of known hinnies looking no different than a standard mule with no difference in physical ability, and also mules being born and looking like what hinnies are supposedly suppose to look like, i.e. more horse like.

In the end one of the biggest reason mules are more common is because they are a much easier cross to breed - it's easier to get a jack interested in a mare and get the job done than a stallion interested in a jenny.

I remember reading an article about a guy who had a hinny. He would take it to mule shows and get togethers and got a lot of compliments on what a good looking mule he had, none of the mule people ever suspected his "mule" was actually a hinny!

Edited for clarity.

What I have read is that you generally get the front end of the father and the rear end of the mother.  So a mule gets the canniness and placid temperament of a donkey and the power of a horse, and a hinny gets the flightiness of a horse and the rather underpowered engine of a donkey.

I've never owned a mule or a hinny, but I've taken blood samples from dozens and dozens. Honestly, I didn't see any significant difference between the two types. If someone mixed 3 dozen in a corral and asked me to segregate them into mules vs hinnys, I would just be guessing (and probably guessing poorly.) Yes, there are individual differences and variations between one mule to another mule, hinny to hinny, and mule to hinny, but they are just individual variations. It's not enough to tell which is a mule and which is a hinny with any kind of accuracy.

The main reason that there are more mules is that a jack is more apt to breed a mare, than a stallion is to breed a Jenny. As with everything, people tend to go with the easier option.