Colour Genetics & Greying Out

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Sessle

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Right, I am completely clueless when it comes to colour genetics and have absolutely no idea! I'm also sorry if this sort of post has been done before, I wasn't sure what to type in the search thingy to narrow it down!

Basically, I am considering breeding out of my mare, not to sell, but for me to keep, she has good confo, temperment and so on, and has done well competitively.

She is an appaloosa x unknown cob, her father was a leopard spot and her mother was black/brown. She is grey, so my first question is how has she greyed out given that neither of her parents were proper grey? Or is the grey gene carried in the spotted gene?

Secondly, if she is grey, does this make her true grey and therefore carry the possibility of her foal potentially greying out? The reason I ask this is because as well as choosing a stallion suitor who has excellent confo, temp, etc, I would also like to possibly have a particular coloured foal (but obviously only if I can find one good enough, I am not literally just going to breed for a different coloured foal, health & quality comes first!)

I still have lots of reading up to do, but if you could dumb this part down for me I'd be grateful! Thanks :)
 
Sessle said:
She is an appaloosa x unknown cob, her father was a leopard spot and her mother was black/brown. She is grey, so my first question is how has she greyed out given that neither of her parents were proper grey? Or is the grey gene carried in the spotted gene?
Click to expand...

LP -or the spotting gene series can have strange effects on the coat colour but a leopard spto to a black brown cannot give a grey offspring.

Which parent was which colour and what do you mean by unknown cob?
Grey is always expressed if present.
 
Father was the spotted -
38232_420809248415_3419957_n.jpg


Her mother was the black/brown - I believe she was an irish cob, but not entirely sure and it doesn't say her breeding in the passport, I don't have any picture of her :(

When my girl was born she was also black/brown, and this was her a couple of years ago (I don't have an recent photos on photobucket but she is much 'greyer' now) -
SDC10363.jpg
 
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Magic104 - Sire was Cochice II of the Rowberton Stud

S4sugar - Thanks for that link, defo look into doing that :)

If she does have varnish gene, is that a dilute gene? Will that affect colouring out of any coloured foal?
 
brighteyes said:
I will watch this thread as I am looking after an American Paint cross who appears to be greying out. If the stallion always throws coloureds, does his progeny always remain coloured?
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Even if the stallion was homozygous for colour, if the mare was grey then the foal could inherit both the coloured and the grey gene - so yes, a coloured can grey out - you sometimes see a greying coloured called blue and white :)
 
Sessle said:
When my girl was born she was also black/brown, and this was her a couple of years ago (I don't have an recent photos on photobucket but she is much 'greyer' now) -
SDC10363.jpg
Click to expand...

Your girl is a varnish roan, not grey.

Basically, there are two genes that cause the appaloosa pattern - LP & PATN.
PATN by itself does nothing, it needs LP to show. LP by itself causes appaloosa characteristics (white scelera, stripped hooves, spotty skin, varnishing).
There are multiple PATN's responsible for the area the spots cover - PATN1 is leopard, and at the moment the others are just grouped under PATN2 for simplicity. (thought that there are many PATN's, responsible for the size of the blanket area).

So, if a horse is lplp, it doesn't matter if it's carrying PATN, it won't show, thus being not spotted.

If your horse it Lplp:
No PATN - characteristics only - will varnish to show spots (which is what your girl is)
PATN1 - leopard
other PATN - spotted blanket of various size

If your horse is LpLp:
No PATN - characteristics only - will varnish "solid"
PATN1 - fewspot
other PATN - solid blanket of various size aka snowcap

Being heterozygous (having one copy of the gene) or homozygous (having two copies, meaning it will always be passed on) for PATN doesn't matter in terms of what pattern you get.

So she has a 50% chance of passing on her LP gene, but unless the stallion carries PATN, the foal won't have spots.
 
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Riiiiight, I think I understand.... it is very complex!
Thanks for your help everyone! I think I'll be coming back to this thread quite often to make sure I've got my head around it! :)
 
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