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Donkeys of the World, by Linda Visser
Inibos Creations

Donkeysof theWorld

The Breeds

Seventy-four donkey breeds of six continents,
from the marshes of Poitou to the edge of the Sahara.

Linda Visser
Free Edition

This book is free

It is free to read, free to keep and free to pass on. Send it to a friend, print it for a classroom, hand it to the farrier, put it on a stable noticeboard. The one thing you may not do is sell it.

It was made for anyone who has ever stood at a fence and wondered why one donkey looks nothing like the next. The answer is usually a thousand years of a particular valley, a particular job and a particular winter.

If it earns a place on your shelf, the paid edition adds painted breed portraits, a hand-drawn world density map, the global census and a chapter on the breeds now at risk. It is listed at payhip.com/InibosCreations.

For the donkeys who did the work,
and for the people who noticed.

Donkeys of the World: The Breeds
Free Edition, 2026

Text and design © 2026 Linda Visser
Published by Inibos Creations, Limpopo, South Africa

lindaleevisser-hub.github.io/inibos-creations
payhip.com/InibosCreations

Heights and populations are given as the ranges reported by breed registries and national livestock surveys. Landraces vary widely; treat every figure as a working guide rather than a standard.

Before we begin

One animal,
a hundred answers

There is no such thing as a standard donkey.

What began as a north-east African wild ass has been carried, traded and bred into every dry and difficult corner of the world, and each place bent it to a different purpose. France wanted a giant in a shaggy coat to sire mules for the army. Sicily wanted something small enough to turn in a lane between two stone walls. The Sahel wanted an animal that could walk all day on thorn scrub and find its own water.

So the Poitou grew a coat that hangs in cords to the ground, and the Miniature Mediterranean stopped growing at the height of a large dog. The Dezhou was bred glossy black with a white muzzle because that was the mark of quality in Shandong. The Somali kept the barred legs of its wild ancestors because the drylands never gave it a reason to lose them.

Seventy-four of those answers are gathered here, sorted by the part of the world that produced them. Some are registered breeds with studbooks and shows. Many more are landraces: animals with no paperwork at all, known by the district they come from and kept going by the families who still need them.

A good number of them will not outlast this century without help. That is the other reason for this book.

How to read an entry

Height is measured at the withers, as reported by breed registries and national surveys. Landraces vary more than any range suggests.

Primary use is what the breed was developed to do, and in most cases what it is still doing.

The line in italics under each name is mine, not official. It is there to help you remember which donkey is which.

Before the breeds

What makes
a breed

Ask what breed a donkey is and the answer usually comes back as a colour. Grey. Black. Brown with a white nose. It is the least useful answer available, because colour in donkeys is very nearly universal.

The pale muzzle and the pale rings around the eyes have a name. Breeders call it mealy, geneticists call it pangaré, and it came down from the African wild ass along with the dorsal stripe and the shoulder cross. Wild asses, onagers and kiangs all carry it. So do most donkeys alive. A donkey without those pale points is the unusual one, carrying a recessive change at the agouti gene that switched them off.

A breed is narrower. It is a population with a written standard, a studbook recording which animal was bred to which, and a society of breeders who agree to keep both. That record is what lets anyone say this animal is one of those and be checked on it.

A landrace has none of that. It is a population shaped by a place: the feed that grew there, the work that was needed, the winters or the droughts that killed off whatever could not cope, and the families who kept breeding from the ones that came through. Most of the donkeys in this book are landraces. So is very nearly every donkey on earth.

A worked example

The donkey seen most often across southern Africa is brown, with a pale muzzle and pale rings around the eyes. It gets called a Spanish donkey often enough for the name to stick.

The Spanish breeds look nothing like it. The Andalusian is silver-grey and stands a head taller. The Catalan is close to black and taller still. What that brown donkey almost certainly is, is the South African donkey, which you will find in Part Five with the rest of Africa.

· 5 ·
Before the breeds

How many
are there

The number moves depending on who is counting.

The United Nations keeps the register. Its Domestic Animal Diversity Information System has been listing donkey breeds since the 1990s, and the count has more than doubled since it started.

No new donkeys appeared in those years. What changed was the recording. Populations that had been going for centuries were finally written down, usually because someone in a national agriculture department went out and looked.

Set against that, the number of donkeys with a real studbook behind them is small. France has bred donkeys longer and more deliberately than almost anywhere, and it officially recognises seven breeds. The Corsican donkey, kept on that island for as long as anyone has farmed it, is still waiting.

This book describes seventy-four. They are the populations distinct enough to be worth telling apart, whether or not a registry has got round to agreeing.

The count, in short
  • 77donkey breeds on the register in 1995
  • 97in 2000
  • 189by June 2011
  • 160local breeds in the 2022 report, plus 16 shared across borders
  • 7breeds officially recognised in France
  • 74described in this book
  • 122whose risk status is recorded as unknown

For that last group there is no reliable count of how many are left.

Figures from the FAO Domestic Animal Diversity Information System and its 2022 status report on animal genetic resources.

· 6 ·

Contents

Seventy-four breeds in all

· 7 ·
Part One

France, Iberia and the
Atlantic West

Western Europe bred donkeys as bloodstock. The great jacks of Poitou, Catalonia and Andalusia sired the mules that worked the vineyards, hauled the artillery and crossed the Atlantic to found new industries. Around them worked smaller provincial and island animals, kept by farming families who never wrote a studbook.

17 breeds
· 8 ·

Baudet du Poitou

Poitou, western France
Dreadlocked duke of donkeys
Height 135–150 cmPrimary use Mule sire · heritage

Bred for centuries in the marshlands of Poitou as the supreme sire of working mules, the Baudet was once so valuable that its breeders guarded bloodlines like state secrets. It is unmistakable: a giant, long-eared animal draped in a shaggy, cord-forming bay-brown coat called the cadanette, never clipped on traditional farms. By 1977 only forty-four purebreds survived in the world, and its slow rescue has become one of Europe’s great heritage-breed recovery stories.

Grand Noir du Berry

Berry, central France
Canal-towing gentleman in black
Height 127–145 cmPrimary use Draught & pack · heritage

The big black donkey of Berry earned its living towing barges along central France’s canals and hauling for market gardens and vineyards. It is tall and cleanly built in bay-black with a pale belly, and, unusually among donkeys, typically carries no shoulder cross at all, as if the breed left its wild markings behind with its wild manners. Honoured today with its own festivals in its home region, it remains France’s quiet specialist in patient, heavy pulling.

Âne Normand

Normandy, France
Cider-country bay classic
Height 110–125 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding · heritage

The smaller bay donkey of Normandy worked the region’s apple orchards and mixed farms, partner to the same households that kept the famous local dairy herds. Warm bay with a clear cross, compact and harmonious, it comes out neater and lighter than its grey neighbour the Cotentin. Recognised among France’s official donkey breeds, it survives as the tidy, well-mannered face of Norman farm tradition.

· 9 ·

Âne de Provence

Provence, France
Walks with the flocks
Height 117–135 cmPrimary use Pack on transhumance · heritage

For centuries the Provence donkey climbed with the great migrating sheep flocks of southern France, carrying the shepherds’ camp, and famously the newborn lambs, up to summer pasture. This is a dove-grey donkey of sturdy build, marked with a bold cross, calm enough to walk for weeks amid thousands of sheep. The breed remains the living emblem of transhumance, a tradition so cherished that its flock-and-donkey processions still stop French village traffic every June.

Âne Corse

Corsica, France
Island maquis all-rounder
Height 100–120 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding · landrace

Corsica’s donkey carried chestnuts, olives and firewood through the island’s steep maquis-covered interior for as long as anyone has farmed it. It is small, hardy and most often grey to dark brown, built close to the ground for paths that switchback through scrub. Long uncounted because it belonged to everyone, the island population is now documented as a landrace of its own, Corsican to the bone.

Âne Bourbonnais

Bourbonnais, central France
Chocolate-coated farm steady
Height 118–135 cmPrimary use Smallholding & light draught · heritage

Across the quiet mixed-farming country of the old Bourbonnais province, this donkey hauled for vineyards, market gardens and small dairies. The coat is a rich chocolate brown, the muzzle and eye-rings pale, the build medium and the temperament famously level. One of France’s recognised heritage breeds, it is kept today largely for driving, walking holidays and the simple pleasure of its company.

· 10 ·

Cotentin Donkey

Normandy, France
Dove-grey dairy-country regular
Height 115–135 cmPrimary use Pack & light draught · heritage

In Normandy’s green dairy country, the Cotentin hauled milk churns from pasture to collection point, a daily round it performed so reliably that farms ran on its memory of the route. It is a neat dove-grey donkey with a crisp dark cross and shoulder stripe, refined-looking but bred for honest, repetitive work. When the milk lorry ended its career, local breeders refused to let the breed follow the churns into history, and it survives today as one of France’s seven recognised donkey breeds.

Âne des Pyrénées

Pyrenean France
Mountain freight, French registered
Height 120–150 cmPrimary use Pack, draught & mule breeding

Gathered from the old working populations of the French Pyrenees, this breed supplied both compact mountain pack animals and tall mule-siring jacks for the trade across the Spanish border. It is dark bay to black with pale muzzle and eye-rings, bred in two traditional types: the smaller Gascon worker and the larger Catalan-influenced sire. For centuries it was the freight system of the high valleys, carrying everything the mountains needed up, and everything they produced down.

· 11 ·

Catalan DonkeyGuarà Català

Catalonia, Spain
Tall, black, fiercely beloved
Height 135–160 cmPrimary use Mule sire · national symbol

Raised in the Pyrenean foothills as one of history’s most sought-after mule sires, the Catalan donkey was exported across the world and helped found America’s Mammoth Jackstock. It is among the tallest of all donkeys, long-legged and near-black, with pale mealy rings around the eyes and muzzle that give it a permanently thoughtful expression. Reduced to a few hundred animals by mechanisation, it has been adopted as an unofficial emblem of Catalonia itself, its silhouette now travelling on car stickers where its sons once travelled in ships.

Andalusian DonkeyAsno Andaluz

Andalusia, Spain
Silver-grey Iberian grandee
Height 145–158 cmPrimary use Mule sire · heritage

Descended from the old donkeys of Córdoba and bred large for Spain’s mule trade, the Andalusian carried the prestige of Iberian stockbreeding for centuries and travelled with it to the New World. Tall and powerfully built in pale silver-grey, often subtly dappled, it moves with a calm deliberation that breeders describe as unhurried authority. George Washington famously sought Spanish jacks of this great southern type to found America’s mule industry, a royal gift that made the breed a quiet founder of two continents’ agriculture.

· 12 ·

Zamorano-Leonés

Castile & León, Spain
Shaggy mountain nobleman
Height 130–150 cmPrimary use Mule sire · draught

Bred in the cold uplands of north-western Spain, the Zamorano-Leonés supplied heavy mule sires and farm power to a region where winters forgive nothing. It wears a thick, dark, long-haired coat with pale muzzle and eye-rings, and its abundant forelock and ears fringed in long hair give it the look of a serious gentleman in a fur hat. Once numbering in the tens of thousands, it survives today as a guarded heritage population, proof that even the hardiest aristocrats needed protecting from the tractor.

Encartaciones Donkey

Basque Country, Spain
Small, dark Basque holdout
Height 95–120 cmPrimary use Smallholding & pack · heritage

Among the green valleys of Las Encartaciones, this small dark donkey served Basque farmsteads where fields tilt and weather argues. It is the smallest of Spain’s recognised breeds, compact and thick-coated, dark brown with pale muzzle. Reduced to critical numbers, it is now guarded by Basque conservation breeding as a piece of the region’s identity.

· 13 ·

Mallorquina Donkey

Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
Black island mule-maker
Height 120–140 cmPrimary use Mule sire & farm work · heritage

Mallorca’s black donkey powered the island’s terraced farms and supplied jacks for the Balearic mule trade. Tall, clean-limbed and near-black with pale points, it shows its kinship to the great Catalan across the water. Brought to the brink by tourism-era farming changes, it survives in a small, carefully managed island studbook.

Majorera Donkey

Canary Islands, Spain
Volcanic-island water-carrier
Height 100–115 cmPrimary use Pack & farm work · heritage

On Fuerteventura and its arid sister islands, the little Majorera hauled water and harvests across volcanic plains African in everything but flag. It is small, grey-dun and desert-hardy, closer in build and toughness to the donkeys of the nearby Sahara than to mainland Spain’s. A protected Canarian heritage breed today, it stands for the islands’ dry-farming past, and is still trusted on land where machines overheat.

Burro de Miranda

Miranda do Douro, Portugal
Gentle long-haired borderlander
Height 120–135 cmPrimary use Smallholding & therapy · heritage

The remote Mirandese plateau along Portugal’s north-eastern border gave this breed its work: tiny terraced farms, alongside families who spoke their own ancient language, Mirandês. It is a sturdy brown donkey wrapped in a long, thick coat with a famously kind eye, bred over centuries for closeness to the household rather than the road. Today a devoted local association keeps the breed alive partly through donkey-assisted therapy, the old farm companion retrained as a healer.

· 14 ·

Burro da Graciosa

Graciosa, Azores, Portugal
Atlantic island miniature treasure
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Smallholding · heritage

On the small Azorean island of Graciosa, an isolated population of little donkeys worked vineyards and carried milk churns between stone-walled fields. Generations of island isolation fixed a tiny, tough, grey-brown type found nowhere else on Earth. With numbers counted in the dozens, it ranks among Europe’s rarest equines, kept alive by an island that refuses to lose it.

Irish Donkey

Ireland
Turf-cart icon of the west
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Historic farm & turf work

Arriving in numbers only a few centuries ago, the donkey took such firm root in rural Ireland that it became shorthand for the country’s western seaboard, hauling turf from the bogs in wicker-pannier creels. It is small, shaggy and weatherproofed for Atlantic rain, usually grey with a strong cross that Irish folk tradition explains with particular tenderness. Long after the turf carts stopped, it remains one of the most photographed animals in the country, the retired worker who became the face of the farm.

· 15 ·
Part Two

Italy and the
Mediterranean Islands

Italy and its islands hold more distinct donkey breeds than anywhere else in Europe. Volcanic soil, terraced hillsides and long isolation produced animals shaped by a single valley or a single stretch of coast, several of which came close to vanishing within living memory.

13 breeds
· 16 ·

Martina Franca Donkey

Puglia, southern Italy
Italy’s black baroque giant
Height 135–150 cmPrimary use Mule sire · heritage

Bred among the trulli and limestone pastures of the Itria Valley, the Martina Franca became Italy’s premier mule sire, its sons prized by armies and mountain farmers alike. It stands tall and sculptural in glossy black-brown with pale points, carrying perhaps the most architectural head in the donkey world. Italian mountain artillery marched on Martina Franca mules through two world wars, and the breed is still raised with studbook pride in its small home territory.

Romagnolo Donkey

Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Stout-hearted smallholder’s mate
Height 120–140 cmPrimary use Farm work · heritage

The donkey of Romagna worked the region’s intensively farmed plains and foothills, hitched to carts between vineyards, orchards and wheat. Bred for honest pulling rather than show, it is solid and well-coupled, dark bay to brown with pale points. Like most of Italy’s donkeys it nearly vanished with mechanisation, and survives through a determined regional conservation register.

Viterbese Donkey

Lazio, Italy
Etruscan-country grey survivor
Height 115–135 cmPrimary use Pack & farm work · heritage

In the volcanic hills north of Rome, old Etruscan country, the Viterbese carried for hazelnut groves, olive farms and hill towns. Medium in size, grey to dark, classically marked, and hardy on the region’s rough pasture. Recently recovered and registered after near-disappearance, it is the comeback story of Lazio’s countryside.

· 17 ·

Amiata DonkeyAmiatina

Monte Amiata, Tuscany, Italy
Wild-marked Tuscan original
Height 115–135 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding · heritage

Hardened on the chestnut-wooded slopes of an extinct Tuscan volcano, the Amiata served charcoal burners, shepherds and small farms for generations. It is mouse-grey with the full ancient wild-ass markings: bold shoulder cross, dark dorsal stripe and zebra-barred legs, making it a living portrait of the donkey’s first ancestors. Treasured by conservation breeders precisely for that primitive stamp, the Amiata is sometimes called the most “original” donkey left in Europe.

Asino Sardo

Sardinia, Italy
Pocket grey island elder
Height 80–110 cmPrimary use Smallholding & mills · heritage

The little grey donkey of Sardinia turned grain mills and carried panniers across the island for centuries, often standing barely waist-high to its owner. It is one of Europe’s smallest natural breeds, mouse-grey with full cross and leg markings, tough out of all proportion to its size. Its miniature stature made it a founding influence on the Miniature Mediterranean donkey now adored around the world.

· 18 ·

Asinara Donkey

Asinara Island, Sardinia, Italy
Small, white, blue-eyed ghost
Height 95–110 cmPrimary use Feral heritage population

On a former prison island off Sardinia’s northern tip lives one of the world’s strangest donkey populations: a small, all-white herd running essentially wild. Its snowy coat and pale blue eyes come from a form of inherited albinism, leaving the animals sensitive to harsh sun and giving them an unearthly, ghost-like presence among the island’s scrub. Now protected within Asinara National Park, the little white donkeys have outlasted the prison, the wardens and every plan ever made for their island.

Grigio Siciliano

Sicily, Italy
Sicily’s silver work-grey
Height 110–130 cmPrimary use Pack & farm work · heritage

The grey donkey of Sicily served the island’s wheat estates, vineyards and painted-cart traditions through every century of its crowded history. Balanced and silver-grey with dark points and cross, it sits in size between Sicily’s small farm stock and its great Ragusano. Conserved today through Sicilian breeding programmes, it carries the everyday history of an island where the donkey was once as common as the olive tree.

· 19 ·

Ragusano Donkey

Ragusa, Sicily, Italy
Dark bay Sicilian heavyweight
Height 128–145 cmPrimary use Draught & mule sire · heritage

Bred up in south-eastern Sicily with Martina Franca blood, the Ragusano became the island’s big donkey, the one for ploughs, carts and serious mule breeding. It is tall and powerfully built in dark bay with pale muzzle and underbelly, the most imposing of Italy’s surviving breeds after its Puglian cousin. It remains a point of fierce local pride in Ragusa province, paraded at fairs as living agricultural heritage.

Pantesco Donkey

Pantelleria, Sicily, Italy
Volcanic-island climber, resurrected
Height 115–135 cmPrimary use Pack & riding · heritage

On the black volcanic terraces of Pantelleria, this agile dark donkey carried grapes and capers up paths cut into lava, famed for a fast, ambling walk. It is slender, near-black and elegantly made, celebrated historically as one of Italy’s finest and most sure-footed island breeds. Effectively extinct by the late twentieth century, it was painstakingly reconstructed from remnant bloodlines, a breed that came back from the dead.

Maltese Donkey

Malta
Small island, outsized legacy
Height 130–145 cmPrimary use Historic draught · mule sire

From a tiny Mediterranean archipelago came a dark, well-made donkey that worked Malta’s terraced fields and carted its limestone for centuries. Compact but strong, typically brown-black with a fine head, it earned a reputation well beyond its shores as quality jack stock. A Maltese jack named Knight of Malta was among the founding sires sent to George Washington, threading this small island’s bloodline permanently into the American Mammoth.

· 20 ·

Greek Donkey

Greece, mainland & islands
Whitewashed-step island icon
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding · landrace

From Pelion’s olive terraces to the stepped lanes of the Cyclades, the Greek donkey carried the country’s life: grapes, stone, tourists’ luggage and grandmothers, wherever wheels were useless. It is small, grey to brown and island-thrifty, a mosaic of local types rather than one studbook breed. Few animals are more photographed against blue and white, yet its working population has fallen steeply, and Greece is now learning to conserve what it long took for granted.

Cyprus Donkey

Cyprus
Big-framed island heavyweight
Height 110–135 cmPrimary use Farm work & pack · landrace

The donkey of Cyprus grew notably large and dark, bred up for the island’s grain farms, vineyards and carob harvest. It is one of the biggest Mediterranean island types, often near-black with pale belly, strong enough for serious draught. Famous feral herds on the Karpas peninsula now roam as the island’s semi-wild mascots, working stock that outlived its work.

Miniature Mediterranean Donkey

Sardinia & Sicily origin · bred worldwide
Pocket-sized, globally adored
Height under 91 cmPrimary use Companion & therapy

Tiny donkeys had turned grain mills and carried panniers on Mediterranean islands for centuries before American breeders imported them in the 1920s and fell entirely in love. Standing under 91 centimetres, with all the donkey’s gravity compressed into a third of the package, it is now among the most numerous registered donkey breeds in the wealthy world. Its modern work is emotional rather than agricultural: therapy visits, children’s companionship and the gentle conversion of horse people into donkey people.

· 21 ·
Part Three

The Balkans, Anatolia
and the Danube

Between the Adriatic and the Anatolian plateau, donkeys carried whole households across country that rewards a sure foot over a fast one. Most of these are landraces, named for a region rather than a register, and most are now counted in the hundreds.

10 breeds
· 22 ·

Istrian Donkey

Istria, Croatia
Adriatic peninsula’s big grey
Height 117–135 cmPrimary use Farm work & draught · heritage

The largest of Croatia’s three donkey breeds worked Istria’s vineyards, olive groves and salt-pan country at the head of the Adriatic. Built with the frame for real draught, grey to dark and strongly made, it was shaped by the peninsula’s mixed Italian and Slavic farming traditions. Protected today under Croatia’s native-breed programme, it has found new life in agritourism and donkey-milk dairying.

Littoral-Dinaric Donkey

Dalmatian coast & hinterland, Croatia
Karst country’s small stalwart
Height 95–110 cmPrimary use Pack · heritage

Along the stony Dalmatian coast and its harsh karst hinterland, this small grey donkey carried water, firewood and grape harvests up slopes made mostly of rock. It is the smallest and hardiest of the Croatian breeds, frugal enough to live well on the karst’s thin pickings. Once the most numerous donkey in the country, it is now conserved as a symbol of old coastal Dalmatia, and a favourite of the region’s island festivals.

North Adriatic Donkey

Kvarner & northern coast, Croatia
Island-hopping middle child
Height 105–120 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding · heritage

Between its larger Istrian and smaller Dalmatian cousins, the North Adriatic donkey served the Kvarner islands and coastal smallholdings. Medium and grey, neat and balanced, it carries the intermediate stamp of centuries of island exchange. Recognised as a distinct native breed in Croatia’s conservation register, it completes the country’s remarkable three-breed coastal family.

· 23 ·

Hungarian Parlagi Donkey

Hungary
Puszta plains old-stock
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Smallholding & herding support · landrace

“Parlagi” means something like “of the old country stock,” and that is exactly what this small grey donkey is: Hungary’s traditional farm and shepherd’s companion of the great plains. It is light, frugal and weather-hardy, historically kept beside sheep flocks on the puszta as the shepherd’s pack animal and mount. Counted today only in the hundreds, it survives in national gene-conservation herds alongside Hungary’s other treasured old breeds.

Austro-Hungarian White Baroque Donkey

Austria & Hungary
Imperial court curiosity, surviving
Height 110–130 cmPrimary use Ornamental heritage · conservation grazing

Bred from the Baroque era as a pale curiosity for the parks and courts of the Habsburg world, the white donkey was fashion before it was function. Its ivory coat and light blue eyes come from the same inherited condition seen on Asinara, giving the breed an heirloom-porcelain delicacy that demands shade and careful keeping. Reduced to a tiny remnant after the empire fell, it survives today in places like Austria’s Lake Neusiedl reserve, an imperial whim turned conservation treasure.

· 24 ·

Albanian Donkey

Albania
Highland footpath freight
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Pack · working landrace

In Albania’s mountainous interior, where villages hang above gorges, the small local donkey remained essential transport well into living memory. It is light, dark-grey and tireless on gradients, fitting the country’s vertical farming like a made-to-measure tool. It carries on in the highlands today, one of Europe’s last truly working donkey populations.

Bulgarian Donkey

Bulgaria
Rose-valley smallholder’s classic
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Cart & smallholding · landrace

Bulgaria’s village donkey pulled the little wooden carts of tobacco, rose-harvest and vegetable country throughout the twentieth century. Modest and grey-brown, of mixed Balkan stock, kept for economy and willingness rather than looks. Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, it is fading with the villages themselves, and being rediscovered by a new generation of small farmers.

Karakaçan Donkey

Turkey & the Balkans
Nomad trail’s little veteran
Height 85–105 cmPrimary use Pack · working landrace

Named for the nomadic herding peoples whose flocks it followed, the small Karakaçan walked seasonal migration trails through Thrace and the Balkans. It is among the smallest donkeys of the region, dark and shaggy, bred by the road itself. It survives as a living trace of Balkan transhumance, the pack animal of people who carried their whole world with them.

· 25 ·

Merzifon Donkey

north-central Turkey
Anatolian market-town regular
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Pack & cart

Around the old market town of Merzifon, this local Anatolian type served grain farms and town trade on the Black Sea hinterland plateau. It is slightly larger and stronger than the common Anatolian village donkey, a recognised regional improvement type. Its name keeps alive the memory of a Turkey where every district’s donkeys were known, compared and argued over like local football teams.

Anatolian Donkey

Turkey
Small frame, enormous workload
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Pack · smallholder transport

Across the Anatolian plateau, this small grey-dun landrace has carried the loads of village life since long before recorded breed names: firewood, water, harvest and rider, often all in one day. It stands barely a metre tall yet routinely carries burdens that look like clerical errors, on a frame toughened by hot summers, cold uplands and sparse keep. Anatolia sat on the great crossroads of the ancient world’s trade routes, and this little donkey is the direct descendant of the animals that walked them.

· 26 ·
Part Four

Asia and the
Middle East

Asia keeps the largest donkey populations on earth, and the most deliberately bred of them. China alone raises a dozen recognised types, from the enormous Dezhou to the desert-going donkeys of Xinjiang, while the Levant, the Gulf and the Indian subcontinent hold breeds prized for pace, endurance and tolerance of heat.

18 breeds
· 27 ·

Dezhou Donkey

Shandong, eastern China
China’s polished black powerhouse
Height 130–155 cmPrimary use Draught · meat & hide industry

Developed on the fertile plains of the lower Yellow River, the Dezhou became the flagship of China’s large donkey breeds, bred for size, strength and fast growth. Glossy black with sharply contrasting white muzzle, eye-rings and underbelly, it wears a pattern admiringly called “three white” in Chinese husbandry. Once the engine of north-China farming, it now stands at the centre of the world’s largest donkey industry, which makes its story both a triumph of breeding and a warning told again in this book’s final chapter.

Guanzhong Donkey

Shaanxi, China
Big, black, plains-bred professional
Height 125–145 cmPrimary use Draught & transport

Bred in the wheat-rich Guanzhong plain around the old imperial capital of Xi’an, this breed served as the heavy transport of a region that has farmed continuously for three thousand years. It is large, clean-limbed and predominantly black, selected over centuries for steady pulling power between the shafts of carts and ploughs. Alongside the Dezhou it became foundation stock for donkey improvement programmes across China: the professional’s donkey, exported province to province.

Biyang Donkey

Henan, China
Henan’s strong-boned hauler
Height 115–135 cmPrimary use Draught & transport

From Biyang county in China’s agricultural heartland comes one of the country’s larger working breeds, bred for cart and field on the wheat plains. Strong-boned and mostly black with pale points, it follows the classic Chinese large-donkey pattern. With the Dezhou and Guanzhong it formed the backbone of improvement breeding across central China’s donkey country.

· 28 ·

Huaibei Grey Donkey

Anhui, China
Grey workmate of millions
Height 100–120 cmPrimary use Farm work & cart

The grey donkey of the Huaibei plain served one of the most densely farmed landscapes on Earth, where every household plot once kept its own. The looks are plain and the economy proven: a medium, iron-grey donkey bred by sheer usefulness rather than fashion. Its kind powered north-China smallholding for centuries, the anonymous multitude behind the famous named breeds.

Taihang Donkey

Hebei & Shanxi, China
Mountain-range gorge worker
Height 105–120 cmPrimary use Pack & draught

Named for the Taihang range that walls off the North China Plain, this breed worked gorge villages and terraced mountain fields. The balance and footing are those of true mountain stock, on a medium, dark, close-coupled frame. Where the famous cliff-cut roads of the Taihang now draw tourists, this donkey once carried everything the cliffs allowed.

Qingyang Donkey

Gansu, China
Loess plateau powerhouse
Height 115–130 cmPrimary use Draught & farm work

On the deeply gullied loess plateau of eastern Gansu, the Qingyang donkey ploughed terraces and hauled along roads carved into yellow earth. It is among the better large breeds of China’s north-west, black with pale points, strong and steady on broken ground. Generations of plateau farmers measured their working day by this animal, the tractor of the loess country long before tractors.

· 29 ·

Liangzhou Donkey

Gansu, China
Silk Road corridor freighter
Height 110–125 cmPrimary use Pack & draught

Named for the old Silk Road garrison city of Liangzhou, this breed worked the Hexi Corridor, the narrow green thread between desert and mountain that linked China to the West. Bred for pack and cart in an arid corridor climate, it is solid, dark and dependable. Caravans passed along its home roads for two thousand years, and its ancestors walked in them.

Xiji Donkey

Ningxia, China
Dryland terrace regular
Height 105–120 cmPrimary use Farm work & pack

In the dry loess hills of Xiji county, among some of China’s most challenging farmland, this donkey served terraced grain plots and long water hauls. Frugal, medium-sized and dark, it was selected by hardship more than by breeders. It remains a fixture of Ningxia’s rural economy, working land where drought is not an event but a climate.

Kulun Donkey

Inner Mongolia, China
Steppe-edge cold specialist
Height 110–125 cmPrimary use Draught & transport

From the Kulun banner country on the Inner Mongolian steppe edge comes a working donkey bred where winters are long and margins short. It is compact and thick-coated, mostly dark with pale points, built to work through cold that stops lesser stock. It carries grassland history in its bones, bred where farming China meets herding China and serving both.

· 30 ·

Xinjiang Donkey

far-western China
Oasis-to-oasis desert courier
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Pack & cart

Across the oasis towns rimming the Taklamakan desert, the small Xinjiang donkey has trotted between bazaars since Silk Road days. It is little, quick and grey-dun, famous for the brisk donkey-cart pace that once defined Kashgar’s market streets. Among China’s most numerous traditional types, it is the desert’s everyday transport: small animal, vast geography.

Yunnan Donkey

south-west China
Small steps, steep country
Height 85–105 cmPrimary use Mountain pack & smallholding

Yunnan’s folded, terraced mountains stand their fields on shelves and send paths switchbacking for hours, and this small grey-dun donkey is the local logistics network. It is light, nimble and famously economical to keep, thriving on rough forage that would not sustain a larger animal. Its ancestors carried tea and salt on the old caravan routes threading south-west China, trade lanes so defined by donkeys and mules that history named them roads of tea and horses, though long ears did much of the walking.

Tibetan Donkey

Tibetan Plateau, China
Thin air, thick coat
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Pack at extreme altitude

On the roof of the world, where pastures sit higher than most European summits, the small Tibetan donkey carries loads through air holding a fraction of lowland oxygen. It is compact and densely coated, dark grey to brown, with the deep chest and stout legs of an animal built for thin air and frozen ground. Working trade routes alongside yaks at altitudes above 4,000 metres, it ranks among the highest-living domestic equids on Earth.

· 31 ·

Spiti Donkey

Himachal Pradesh, India
Himalayan ledge-walker
Height 80–100 cmPrimary use Mountain pack work

Named for the cold desert valley of Spiti in the Indian Himalaya, this tiny breed moves supplies along paths that are less roads than rumours. Among the smallest recognised donkeys in Asia, it is sure-footed to a degree that borders on the unreasonable, picking across scree and ledge with a full load. Villages cut off by snow for months each year have depended on it for generations. Where the Spiti donkey cannot go, people simply do not live.

Halari Donkey

Saurashtra, Gujarat, India
Tall white Gujarati rarity
Height 105–120 cmPrimary use Pack & cart · heritage

Kept traditionally by pastoralist communities of the Halar region, the white Halari is one of India’s most distinctive recognised breeds. It is tall for the subcontinent and strikingly white, with a gentle reputation and good harness manners. With numbers critically low, it has become a flagship for Indian donkey conservation: rare, white and finally noticed.

Kachchhi Donkey

Kutch, Gujarat, India
Salt-desert working grey
Height 100–115 cmPrimary use Pack & cart

Out on the salt flats and dry rangelands of Kutch, the Kachchhi donkey serves pastoralists, salt workers and village transport alike. Compact and grey-brown, heat-hardy and economical, it is registered among India’s recognised donkey breeds. On the white desert of the Rann, where little else thrives, it remains a working partner of communities that measure wealth in livestock.

· 32 ·

Sindhi Donkey

Sindh, Pakistan
Brick-kiln and bazaar workhorse
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Cart & pack labour

Pakistan holds one of the largest donkey populations on Earth, and the small, hardy Sindhi type is its backbone, pulling carts through cities, serving brick kilns and carrying for farms across the Indus plain. Usually grey or light dun, it is unremarkable to look at and extraordinary to watch, working long days in heat that idles machinery. Millions of households measure their daily income by this animal’s willingness, making it, per kilogram, one of the most economically important animals alive.

Damascus DonkeyShami

Syria & the Levant
The Levant’s white saddle-pride
Height 120–140 cmPrimary use Riding · ancient prestige type

The famous white riding donkey of Damascus was the dignified town transport of the Levant, prized by merchants, scholars and officials for centuries. It is tall, fine-headed and typically white to pale grey, bred for a smooth, stylish ride rather than the pack saddle. Travellers’ accounts going back centuries single it out as the aristocrat of Middle Eastern donkeys, and Syria’s upheavals have made its conservation an urgent concern.

Hassawi Donkey

Al-Ahsa oasis, Saudi Arabia
Oasis-bred riding gentleman
Height 110–130 cmPrimary use Riding & transport

From the great date-palm oasis of Al-Ahsa comes Arabia’s distinguished riding donkey, bred tall and smooth-gaited for travel between the springs and groves. This is a large, light-framed donkey, white to pale grey, with the refined look of stock kept by people who took their mounts seriously. Recognised today as part of Saudi Arabia’s agricultural heritage, it is the rare donkey bred more for the rider’s comfort than the load.

· 33 ·
Part Five

Africa

The donkey was domesticated in north-east Africa, and Africa still keeps it closest to its origins. These are landraces rather than registered breeds: small, frugal animals that carry water, grain and firewood for millions of households, and that hold the desert back a little longer each year.

9 breeds
· 34 ·

Nubian-type Donkey

Sudan & the Nile borderlands
Living echo of the ancestor
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Pack & riding

Along the middle Nile, where the donkey was likely first domesticated, working animals still carry the clear shoulder cross of the Nubian wild ass, the vanished ancestor whose marking became the signature of donkeys everywhere. These grey, fine-legged animals serve villages and riverside farms much as their forebears served the kingdoms of Kush. To watch one walk a Nile towpath at dusk is to watch the opening chapter of this whole book, still being written.

Baladi Donkey

Egypt
The Nile’s eternal employee
Height 100–120 cmPrimary use Cart, pack & field work

“Baladi” simply means local, and no donkey has been local for longer: this is the working type of the Nile valley, employed continuously since the time of the pharaohs. It is small, quick and lightly built, usually grey, threading loaded carts through Cairo traffic with the same composure its ancestors showed on temple-building sites. Donkey skeletons buried with honour beside Egypt’s earliest royal tombs suggest its forebears were valued companions of kings. Five thousand years later it is still on the payroll.

Abyssinian Donkey

Ethiopian highlands
Backbone of a nation
Height 90–105 cmPrimary use Pack & household transport

Ethiopia keeps the largest donkey population on Earth, and this small highland type is most of it, the daily carrier of water, grain, firewood and market goods for millions of households. It is light-framed and grey to fawn, thriving at highland altitudes on the leanest of keep. Working within sight of where the donkey was first domesticated, it is the ancient partnership still running at full scale.

· 35 ·

Somali Donkey

Horn of Africa
Drought-proof desert technician
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Water & pack transport

In some of the hottest, driest inhabited country on Earth, the pale grey Somali donkey hauls the most precious cargo there is: water. It carries the strong leg-barring of its wild ancestors, the critically endangered Somali wild ass that still survives in these same drylands, and shares that ancestor’s astonishing tolerance for heat and dehydration. For pastoralist families, this donkey is not transport but infrastructure, the difference between a well within reach and a well too far.

Masai Donkey

Kenya & Tanzania
Savanna household quartermaster
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Household pack transport

Across Maasai rangelands, this small, tough landrace moves entire households: water, maize, firewood and, when families relocate with their herds, the home itself. It is light-framed and typically grey with a bold cross, kept in loose village herds and worked with minimal tack on minimal feed. In communities measured in cattle, the donkey holds a quieter kind of wealth: it is the animal that makes everything else possible.

Sahelian Donkey

the Sahel belt, West Africa
The Sahel’s patient lifeline
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Cart, plough & pack

Strung along the dry shore of the Sahara from Senegal to Chad, the Sahelian donkey ploughs sandy fields, draws carts to market and walks the long kilometres to wells. It is small, light-grey and lean almost to the point of understatement, with an ability to recover from drought-season hardship that veterinarians describe with open admiration. As desertification pushes farming to its margins, this landrace is working the front line of climate change, and West Africa’s donkey numbers keep growing because nothing else can do its job.

· 36 ·

Moroccan Atlas Donkey

Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Mountain souk freight service
Height 90–115 cmPrimary use Pack & market transport

In the Berber villages of the High Atlas, the donkey remains the only vehicle rated for the local roads, which are frequently staircases. This small, dark, thick-coated landrace shuttles between mountain terraces and valley souks, carrying produce down and supplies up in panniers older than most maps of the region. Morocco’s walled medinas still depend on it too. In the car-free lanes of old Fez, the donkey is, quite literally, the delivery van.

South African (Cape) Donkey

southern Africa
Karoo’s patient platteland partner
Height 100–120 cmPrimary use Cart, plough & pack

Descended from stock landed at the Cape and spread by trek farmers, the donkey became the platteland’s working partner across the Karoo and Kalahari edges. It stands tough and mixed-grey on a practical frame, famous for the donkey-cart transport that still serves communities far from tar roads. In the Northern Cape’s old mission and farming districts, donkeys remain woven into rural life, a southern African heritage hiding in plain sight.

Tswana Donkey

Botswana
Kalahari sand-country specialist
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Cart, plough & water transport

In Botswana’s deep-sand cattle country, the Tswana donkey pulls carts and ploughs where the Kalahari swallows wheels and exhausts oxen. It is small, drought-seasoned and grey, kept in village herds that know their own way home. For thousands of rural families it is the working margin of daily life: water moved, fields ploughed, firewood home before dark.

· 37 ·
Part Six

The Americas
and Australia

Every donkey in the Americas and Australia arrived on a ship. From Spanish and Maltese stock came the Mammoth jacks of the United States, the burros of Mexico, the saddle donkeys of Brazil and the haulage teams of the outback, each bred to suit a continent its ancestors had never seen.

7 breeds
· 38 ·

American Mammoth Jackstock

United States
Founding Father’s giant project
Height 142–160+ cmPrimary use Mule sire · riding

Assembled from the great jacks of Spain, Malta and France, the Mammoth was bred deliberately, beginning with George Washington’s own stud programme, to sire the mules that would farm and freight a new nation. It is the largest donkey breed in the world, a tall, big-boned animal in black, grey or red with the presence of a draught horse and the mind of a donkey. Its mule sons cleared American fields, hauled American armies and packed American mines for a century and a half, making this breed a genuine, if rarely credited, founder of the republic.

American Spotted Donkey

United States
Patchwork showstopper, working roots
Height 90–145 cmPrimary use Riding, driving & show

Bred up from spotted animals that appeared throughout America’s working stock, this registered type turns the donkey’s usual quiet greys into bold maps of colour. Its broken coat patterns, dark patches on white with no two animals alike, made it a favourite for shows, parades and family farms. It is proof that after centuries of being bred strictly for work, the American donkey finally got a wardrobe.

· 39 ·

Burro Criollo

Mexico
Five-hundred-year frontier veteran
Height 95–115 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding

Descended from the first donkeys landed by Spanish colonists in the 1530s, the burro spread with every mission, mine and milpa until it became part of Mexico’s national furniture. It is small, dust-grey and self-sufficient, shaped by five centuries of mountains, deserts and make-do. Its escaped kin became the feral burros of the American Southwest, and its name entered English itself. Few animals have a passport stamped so deeply into a continent’s culture.

Pêga Donkey

Minas Gerais, Brazil
Brazil’s smooth-gaited gentleman
Height 120–135 cmPrimary use Gaited saddle breed · mule sire

Developed on the fazendas of Minas Gerais from the 19th century, the Pêga was bred for something rare in donkeys: a smooth, ground-eating saddle gait called the marcha. Elegant and grey-roan to dark, it passes that floating gait to its mule offspring, which became the preferred mounts of Brazilian ranch country. It remains the flagship donkey breed of Latin America, with championship shows, serious studbooks and prices that would startle anyone who thinks “donkey” means cheap.

· 40 ·

Nordestino Donkey

north-east Brazil
Sertão’s drought-bitten survivor
Height 90–110 cmPrimary use Pack & smallholding

Through the thorn-scrub sertão of Brazil’s north-east, the small grey Nordestino has served drought-cycle farming communities since colonial times. It is the burro’s Brazilian cousin: lean, heat-proof and content on caatinga browse that defeats nearly every other working animal. Folk music and literature of the region treat it as a fellow sufferer and fellow survivor, the four-legged embodiment of sertanejo endurance.

Paulista Donkey

São Paulo state, Brazil
Coffee-country developed gentleman
Height 115–130 cmPrimary use Saddle & mule sire

Developed in Brazil’s south-east as coffee wealth demanded quality mounts and mule sires, the Paulista was bred up from colonial stock with imported blood. It is a refined, well-made saddle donkey, typically grey to dark, standing between the Nordestino’s hardiness and the Pêga’s elegance. It rounds out Brazil’s remarkable donkey family, a country that, almost alone in the Americas, bred donkeys as fine saddle stock.

Australian Teamster Donkey

Australia
Outback haulage, reborn breed
Height 110–140 cmPrimary use Pack, harness & riding

Donkey teams hauled wool, water tanks and supplies across Australia’s waterless interior where horses and bullocks failed, sometimes working in strings dozens strong. When trucks ended the teamster era, many animals were turned loose, founding the world’s largest feral donkey population in the outback. The modern Teamster breed was developed from that tough inheritance, a deliberate effort to give Australia’s haulage history a registered, living monument.

· 41 ·
At the back

Where this
comes from

This book is a compilation. The accounts were drawn from the bodies of work below rather than from any single volume, and the numbers in them are best read as working ranges. A landrace kept across four countries will not agree with itself about height.

If something here is wrong, the website has a contact form. Corrections go into the next edition, and the next edition is free as well.

· 42 ·
Where to go from here

More from
Inibos Creations

Inibos Creations is a one-woman imprint on a farm in the Limpopo bushveld. The books come out of years of donkey rescue, a great deal of reading and a stubborn refusal to let the working donkey go unrecorded.

Donkeys of the World

The full edition. Every breed in this book, plus painted portraits, a hand-drawn world density map, the global donkey census and a chapter on the breeds now at risk.

The Donkey Care Manual

Feeding, feet, teeth, worming and the hard decisions. Written for the smallholder rather than the veterinary student.

Long Ears & Big Hearts

The rescue years, told straight. Donkeys who arrived in a bad way and mostly did not stay that way.

The Waterhole Chronicles

A wildlife anthology from the bushveld, written at the one place every animal has to come to sooner or later.

Wilder’s Wild World

Seventeen illustrated books for younger readers, for the child in the house who has already asked what a donkey eats.

Everything is listed here

lindaleevisser-hub.github.io/inibos-creations

payhip.com/InibosCreations

· 43 ·

Donkeys have carried us, helped us
and put up with us for six thousand years.

Learn one of them by name.

Inibos Creations
Rooidam, Limpopo · 2026
· 44 ·