appaloosas colouring out like greys do?

[bubblensqueak]

im wondering if appaloosas, say blanket spotted appaloosas grey out/lighten as they get older? for example this one-

was this horse completely chestnut when it was born, if so did it have the blanket as well? and will it end up completely grey?
what about this one? this horse is 14 now, but i don't know what it looked like before-
all images via google.

 

[ycbm]

They can grey out but mine won't, I tested for the grey gene because i wanted to know. Mine is actually now darker every year!

Mine was born bay with a blanket and spots, at 4 he was white with spots and at 5 is now very brown flecked with a blanket with spots .

 

[bubblensqueak]

They can grey out but mine won't, I tested for the grey gene because i wanted to know. Mine is actually now darker every year!

Mine was born bay with a blanket and spots, at 4 he was white with spots and at 5 is now very brown flecked with a blanket with spots .

wow thats a big change, do you have a photo from each year?

 

[Chinchilla]

They will varnish out even without any copies of the grey gene so there is no solid colour left but the spots will stay (unless there is also grey, in which case the spots will shrink over time but there will still be pigmented spots on the skin).

The horse pictures will have been it's base colour with blanket spotting as a younger horse in and would probably test LP_PATN1_. blankets themselves are caused by accumulative modifiers for which there is no available test as yet.

 

[SEL]

Mine is getting whiter as she gets older but it's the varnish gene rather than the grey gene. I need to get on my laptop for her baby photos but she had a little white snowcap bottom when she was born - & much more white on her now

 

[ycbm]

Born 2015




Two



Four







Now. His mane was silver and his tail nearly so. Large parts of it are now black. He's getting more brown flecks in his coat and they're getting darker. Bring it on, poo colour horses are fab!

 

[ycbm]

They can grey out but mine won't, I tested for the grey gene because i wanted to know. Mine is actually now darker every year!

Mine was born bay with a blanket and spots, at 4 he was white with spots and at 5 is now very brown flecked with a blanket with spots .

PS by grey out i mean that the spots disappear. I think they all varnish out, with the dark piece going lighter. I recently discovered that many of them then go darker again like mine.

 

[Chinchilla]

LP roaning can have seasonal changes as can 'normal' roan, so climate and nutritional status probably affects its expression too. Iirc LP is actually disruption of ca2+ channels to so effects communication between cells and ability for melanocytes to synthesise pigment, but lots of other things can affect that too, hence it's not really a stable process of and some lighten then go dark again.
Plus there's the effect of the background genome to consider; different bases do seem to exhibit different levels of expression but it's not known why. (E.g. black and bay based leopard spots tend to have bigger louder spotting than chestnut based ones.)

 

[Libbygrey]

I have a bay blanket spot. I've had him 9 years. The bay parts are quite roany. And it varies how much white hairs there is in the bay roan parts every time his coat changes. Sometimes there's more white hairs sometimes less, but the basic pattern always stays the same. He always has a very obvious blanket with the rest of him being a lot darker.


Also weirdly he had a lot more grey in his mane and tail when I bought him and they have got darker over time and are now pretty much completely black with only a few grey hairs.

He's not full appaloosa though so I don't know of that makes a diffrence. He's half cob too

 

[Errin Paddywack]

My last boy was born black with a large spotted blanket and never changed, still the same colour at 23 when he was put down. His mum and her sire were both the same colour but both went much lighter in the summer and darker again in the winter.
My boy shown here at 23. The chestnut is my sister's gelding also at 23. He was born chestnut with a white splash over his quarters. Both are by the same sire, a few spot. Mine is full appaloosa, my sister's out of a 3/4 TB.

 

[SEL]

Apologies for huge photos - it won't let me post the thumbnails for some reason. My mare is a part bred and she's LP/LP. The photo of her as an adult (about 9 in that one) is her summer coat and I actually think she's whiter now in her winter coat.

I'll try and find a photo of her full brother who has spots. He has completely lost his bay colouring now and is leopard spotted like their dad. Mum looks to be a blue roan type - definitely an appaloosa but varnish roan rather than spots.

I had to get a copy passport and the vet needed to re-do the markings. Apart from the facial marking the rest was put down as 'various appaloosa markings' which could cover practically anything!

 

[SpotsandBays]

The horse in the first picture you posted would have been chestnut with a spotted blanket at birth. I believe it is varnishing that caused the coat to lighten in this case. But spotty genetics are an absolute minefield ? I have one and I still don’t get it! Mine won’t grey out, and I don’t *think that he will varnish either but I have no idea ?

 

[SEL]

Dam and full brother of my snowcap above. Not in contact with the owners of the brother any longer but the last photo I saw of him all the bay had gone and he was plastered in spots.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

Appaloosas are a law unto themselves. I knew two who were by the same black blanket stallion, pretty sure out of the same mare. Both born as black nr leopards. Both turned bright chestnut. If it wasn't that their spots didn't change and they were in the same ownership you wouldn't have known them for the same horses. Just part of the magic of appies.

 

[ester]

^^ that's because LP colour shifts too

 

[SpotsandBays]

I’d actually love to really read up on this. Has anybody got any good links?

 

[Chinchilla]

I’d actually love to really read up on this. Has anybody got any good links?

https://www.appaloosaproject.co/

http://equinetapestry.com/category/appaloosa/

https://equinetapestry.blog/appaloosas/

 

[SpotsandBays]

https://www.appaloosaproject.co/

http://equinetapestry.com/category/appaloosa/

https://equinetapestry.blog/appaloosas/

Thank you!

 

[asmp]

https://forums.horseandhound.co.uk/threads/appaloosa-flecking-increasing.793554/#post-14374393

I posted pics of ours on this thread