Mammoth Donkey

The Mammoth is the largest donkey, standing 14 hands and often more, and it is an American breed. George Washington began it: in 1785 the King of Spain sent him a Spanish jack, and Washington bred it with Maltese stock to produce mules for American agriculture.

The breed that resulted was built to sire mules out of draft mares, and for a century it did exactly that across the American South and Midwest, until tractors ended the work.

They are powerful, calm, and unusually gentle for their size.

The trade is that the purpose largely disappeared. Numbers fell sharply after mechanisation and the American Mammoth Jackstock, the registered conservation population, sits on the Conservation Priority List as a result. Keeping one means keeping a very large equine that eats accordingly, founders on good grass like any donkey, and has no commercial job to do.