During this same time, Poitou bloodlines were also used to develop other donkey breeds, including the American Mammoth Jack in the United States.

Conservation efforts were begun by a number of public and private breeders and organizations, and by 2005 there were 450 purebred Poitou donkeys.

They are almost completely covered in hair a half-foot long with legs and joints as large as a those of a carriage horse.In the mid-1800s, Poitevin mules were "regarded as the finest and strongest in France",[5] and between 15,000 and 18,000 were sold annually.

[4] Purchasers paid higher prices for Poitevin mules than for others, and up to 30,000 were bred annually in Poitou,[4] with some estimates putting the number as high as 50,000.

[4] Poitou donkey and mule breeders were extremely protective of their breeding practices, some of which were "highly unusual and misguided.

[6] Despite these husbandry issues, one author, writing in 1883, stated that "mule-breeding is about the only branch of agricultural industry in which France has no rival abroad, owing its prosperity entirely to the zeal of those engaged in it.

This preceded the creation of the Asinerie Nationale Experimentale, which opened in Charente-Maritime in Dampierre-sur-Boutonne in 1982, as an experimental breeding farm.

[2][8] The early conservation efforts were sometimes sidetracked as some breeders sold crossbred Poitous as purebreds, which are worth up to ten times as much.

[9] The conservation efforts in the latter decades of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st were successful, and a 2005 survey revealed 450 purebred registered animals.

[11] In 2001, scientists in Australia successfully implanted a Poitou donkey embryo created by artificial insemination in the womb of a Standardbred mare.

Worries that joint problems might prevent a healthy pregnancy in the foal's biological mother led to the initiative.

[12] Historical records exist of several sets of exports of Poitous from France to the US during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including a 1910 import of 10 donkeys.

Due to high purchase and transportation costs, the breed played a smaller role in the development of the Mammoth Jack than some breeders would have preferred.

[13] Imports to the US continued until at least 1937, when a successful breeding jack name Kaki, who stood 16.2 hands (66 inches, 168 cm) high, was brought to the country.

[17] In Poitou, the coat of the Baudet was traditionally – and deliberately – left ungroomed; with time, it formed cadenettes [fr], long shaggy locks somewhat like dreadlocks.