There are sporadic reports of fertile mules, is there any reality in such reports, if so, can someone explain?

Question

There are sporadic reports of fertile mules, is there any reality in such reports, if so, can someone explain?

Answer 1

false. mules can't reproduce. they're hybrids

Answer 2

okay....i didn't know mules couldn't repoduce... how the h**l do they have babies then...... their species would be extinct if they couldn't reproduce... wouldn't they..... i'm confused =[

Answer 3

it sounds as though you already know that mules are born infertile so the only explanation that i have for those kind of stories is that the people are lying or the mule is not really a mule.

CRAZY PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE!!!

but it's usually only males that are infertile so i guess it would all depend on what the gender of the mule is.

Answer 4

Of millions of mules produced through the millennia, only a tiny fraction has proven fertile.

http://www.uidaho.edu/cloning/news/clone...

Answer 5

Wikipedia is your friend...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#Fertil...

Answer 6

Like most hybrids, mules are nearly always sterile. This is because their parents had different numbers of chromosomes, meaning that they can't pair up correctly as they do when two animals of the same species mate. This results in the hybrid being unable to produce viable sperm or eggs. However, a very small number of female mules have been known to be fertile when bred back to a horse or donkey. Males are always sterile, so you could never breed a mule with another mule.

Zilmhafnagel, mules aren't a species in their own right - they are man-made hybrids produced by mating a male donkey with a female horse (the reverse pairing, a male horse mating with a female donkey, produces offspring called a hinny).