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Donkey Spots?

I know horses can have bend or spots and other things like that, but I'm wondering what you would call something like that on a donkey. Here's a pic...note the two chestnut spots on him. [IMG]http://i427.photobucket.com/albums/pp352/HorsesRAwesum/KCJ/Donkey.jpg[/…] Thanks!

rodeoratdogs Thu, 02/24/2011 - 21:51

That is interesting, is he actually a donkey or a mule? He looks like a mule to me, so whatever the color, it could of come from his horse parent.

critterkeeper Thu, 02/24/2011 - 22:15

I agree with rodeoratdogs, this fella looks more mulish to me...although spotted donkeys do exist (see the gallery), they usually have more color than this guy.

CMhorses Sat, 02/26/2011 - 01:32

Sorry I am slow, I only view the forums when I'm at the college really... but anyway... Most likely this mule (no doubt this is a mule) is a donkey spotted on a bay base probably, the random spots are just from pattern skewing, since sometimes mules end up completely white with pink skin from donkey spotting. BendOr would probably be much darker on a mule, but remember all patterns skew on mules.

Threnody Sat, 02/26/2011 - 11:25

I've seen a picture of a mule from completely solid mare and a moderately spotted jack come out almost entirely white. I love pattern skewing. ^_^

Threnody Sun, 02/27/2011 - 16:07

Skewing is basically when a pattern expresses differently than it normally would. In the case of Appy [u]horses[/u], their spots are fairly average, but express that same appaloosa pattern in a [u]mule[/u] and it will express a bit differently. (Often in this particular case mules express much larger appy spots than would ever normally be seen on a horse)

Minis and drafts can express patterns a bit "skewed" from the average light horse expression as well.

Think of skewed patterns as the same painting but placed on a different type of canvass. ^_^

CMhorses Tue, 03/01/2011 - 16:20

I took another look at this at school, and I am pretty confident it is just donkey spotting since there are only a handful of things that can cause a white mule. I am pretty confident it is on a bay base since there are no known red based spotted donkeys so in theory the only spotted red based mules would have to be appy or tobiano.
Threnody nailed what skewing does, it even happens with colors too, but mainly dilute colors like cream.
I think appy skews in a lot more ways than tobi and donkey spotting do when on mules.
[img]http://www.seeinspotsfarm.com/assets/sp…]
[img]http://www.horseclicks.com/photos/horse…]
http://i.pbase.com/o2/49/409149/1/96249…