Brown 3 year old with grey hairs?

[Shortcut]

I bought my pba gelding in febuary and I noticed that he has white hairs on his face and flanks. He turned 3 on the 25th of april and people have said to me he looks quite flecked. Both of his parents are dark brown but his grandad (Kalaharee) is a grey. He also has a cluster of white hairs on his hip (which apparently he was born with).

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill or could he turn grey?

P.S I don't know anything about colour genetics :L

 

[Miss L Toe]

Horses can change from day old to year old, and greys go whiter as the years go by, but he is the colour he is now, and won't change much except winter to summer which is common with bays, dark bay to bright bay.

 

[donablue]

my grey in his younger days had lovely dapples ...
as hes got older hes just pure grey now ...
make it look as though i have a different horse ...

my other horse was a chocolate colour when she was a foal and now as shes near 4 shes near enough jet black ..

 

[TicTac]

My grey horse has brown hairs!

 

[Flicker]

Maybe buy him some 'Just for Men'

 

[jendie]

My ID youngster is a liver chestnut at the moment....but she has a few grey hairs on her face. I'm pretty certain she will end up white in a few years.

 

[Shortcut]

I have thought about that Flicker!

 

[prosoup]

no, your horse will not turn grey. grey is a dominant gene, which means that if a horse has it, you can see that it has it (i.e. it will be grey). this means that neither of your horses (brown) parents have the grey gene, and therefore cannot have passed it on to your horse.

of course if your horses parents are very young and have not turned grey then that is another matter, but as your horse is now three i think this is very unlikely!

 

[Meowy Catkin]

If neither of his parents are grey, then he wont be grey. It is much more likely that your boy is either a sabino or a rabicano. Could you post some photos?

 

[team barney]

I bought my pba gelding in febuary and I noticed that he has white hairs on his face and flanks. He turned 3 on the 25th of april and people have said to me he looks quite flecked. Both of his parents are dark brown but his grandad (Kalaharee) is a grey. He also has a cluster of white hairs on his hip (which apparently he was born with).

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill or could he turn grey?

P.S I don't know anything about colour genetics :L

Grey is dominant so if both his parent were brown he won't grey out.

 

[donablue]

not sure how this will end up .
my mare is near enough black .. her mum is black with grey flecks . and im led to believe that the stallion was coloured .....

i know nothing about colours at all ..

 

[Shortcut]

hmm I didn't think he would turn grey, I will just have to use makeup when he goes showing as they grey on his face is quite noticeable.

 

[Kenzo]

My lad is steel grey but goes a rose grey during summer but was born and identified for his passport as bay when he was foal, I have a photo of him as a foal and he looked dark bay.
His sire was coloured (skewbald) and his dam a grey and has palomino further back.

He goes almost black during winter (black legs) and a black coat with white flecks, then come summer he gets dapples and goes a more roan coloured, all very strange!

 

[peanut]

My brown horse has had a smattering of grey hairs since turning brown from black as a foal. She gets many more grey hairs when her coat changes in the spring and autumn.

I used to worry she was turning grey also, but it has never happened.

 

[Alexart]

One of my TB's sounds similar to yours - she carries the rabicano gene, she's bright bay in the summer, has a white spot on her bum all year round as well as 4 white bars on the top of her tail, her winter coat is really well flecked with grey throughout which makes her look old!, so most likely it's the same sort of thing.

 

[Sambo]

A mare i used to know was born chestnut, with one white sock - her passport has her down as chestnut too. She was chestnut until aged 7, then her grey fleks took over and she is a very grey horse now (white grey), during summer you can see a few tiny chestnut fleks but that is all. Her dam was chetnut and her sire was bright bay... You can see where her white sock was because she has one white hoof and the other three are black.

And my mums Andalusian is bay with grey fleks, so will probably turn grey, her dam is bay and her sire grey - so that makes more sense..