Poitevin Mulassier

The Poitevin () or Poitou is a French breed of draft horse. It is named for its area of origin, the former province of Poitou in west-central France, now a part of the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It was formed in the seventeenth century when horses of Flemish or Dutch origin, brought to the area by engineers working to drain the Marais Poitevin, interbred with local horses. Although it has the size and conformation of a draft horse, the Poitevin has never been bred for draft abilities, and has been little used for draft work. Its principal traditional use was the production of mules. Poitevin mares were put to jacks of the large Baudet du Poitou breed of donkey; the resulting Poitevin mules were in demand for agricultural and other work in many parts of the world, including Russia and the United States. In the early twentieth century there were some 50,000 brood mares producing between 18,000 and 20,000 mules per year.

The Poitevin is an endangered breed; in 2011 there were just over 300 breeding animals, of which about 40 were stallions. The horses may be of any solid coat color, including striped dun, a color not seen in other French draft horses. The Poitevin is a slow-growing breed with heavy bone, and is not suitable for meat production.

History

The Poitevin originated in the marshlands of the Charente and the Vendée in the seventeenth century, when horses of Flemish or Dutch origin, brought to the area by engineers working on land drainage, interbred with local horses.

On 1 January 1599, Henri IV of France appointed Humphrey Bradley, an English land drainage engineer from Brabant, , or "master of dykes of the Kingdom", which essentially gave him a monopoly of all dyking and land reclamation work throughout the country. Bradley also enjoyed the support of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, chief minister to the king. Early in the seventeenth century he contracted to drain parts of the Marais de Saintonge, but was not able to carry the work forward until after 1607, when the was formed by royal edict. He did not himself direct the work, but entrusted it to two brothers, Marc and Jérome de Comans. They brought a good number of workers from the Low Countries; by about 1610 the area between Muron and Tonnay-Charente had come to be known as the Marais de la Petite-Flandre, the "marsh of little Flanders". It is believed that a number of working horses were also brought from the Low Countries, possibly of Brabant, Flemish or Friesian type. Drainage of the Marais Poitevin, the marshlands of Poitou, did not begin before 1640, by which time Bradley is thought to have died. Horses were brought to the area from Germany in about 1685. Interbreeding between these various imported horses and local stock of indeterminate type led to the development of the Poitevin, a large, heavy, slow horse well adapted to marshy terrain.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the French government tried to impose a system of crossing Poitevin horses with lighter-weight Norman and Thoroughbred horses to create cavalry horses. Despite financial incentives, private breeders protested because they felt that the resulting crossbred horses created poor quality mules upon further breeding. The changes also affected the characteristics of the breed that had been developed for work in its marshy homeland, including large hooves and a calm manner. Some sources argue that at this point the breed was employed for agricultural and logging uses. Others state that they were not pulling horses, and were instead used almost solely for the production of mules.

Production of mules

Poitevin mares were crossbred with Poitou donkeys to create the famous Poitou mule, a large, hardy breed. As mules are hybrids, and thus sterile, they can only be created through crossing a donkey and a horse. The industry of mule breeding in Poitou has existed since at least the eighteenth century, when it was opposed by the government stud farm administration that was attempting to breed cavalry horses for French troops. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the government prohibited breeding mules from mares taller than , and threatened to castrate all donkeys in the region. In the 1860s noted that the heavy mares from the Poitou marshes produced the best mules, probably because of their heavy bone structure.

Although the Poitevin was not the only breed of horse used for the production of mules, the Poitou mule was known worldwide. They were in high demand in the United States from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of World War I. During the 1920s, livestock production began to decline. In the Deux-Sèvres region, especially in the district of Melle, near Luçon and Saint-Maixent, mule breeding began to be concentrated in ''ateliers'' (workshops), which were relatively expensive for breeders.

Nineteenth century

Poitevin colts and fillies were sold at fairs in Marans, Nuaillé, Surgères, Rochefort, Pont-l'Abbé and Saujon. In 1867, there were 50,000 pure and crossbred mares. By the early twentieth century, there were tens of thousands of Poitevins in France, but numbers later fell. Poitevin colts, which were not used for the breeding of mules, were considered "soft" and less valuable than the major draft horse breed of the nineteenth century – the Percheron. Some horse dealers purchased young gray Poitevin horses, fed them heavily to make them larger and stronger, and then sold them at the age of four as Percherons. These "Percherons" were transported to areas such as Saintonge, Yonne, Nivernais

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