Colour Genetics Questions

W

Willow1306

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 December 2007
Messages
663
Visit site
Hi,
Just a couple of questions re: colour genetics :

1.) Is Brown a seperate colour to Bay or is it also controlled by the Agouti gene and in fact just a shade of Bay?

2.) What genotype combinations are Liver Chesnuts? (apologise if that sentence is daft....)

Any help appreciated.
 
1) not sure sorry! I would guess that both the agouti and extension genes are present and maybe there is something else at work to prevent the points from being entirely black? So E-A- and possibly something else.
2) it's not yet understood exactly what makes up different shades of chestnut so it's noted as eeaa

I can find out the answer to 1) if you can wait a few weeks as one of my lecturers writes on the subject.
 
I have a great book about colour genetics called Horse Colour Explained by Jeanette Gower, it's in a box at the moment so can't find the answer but it has some gorgeous pics, would reccommend.

Jules x
 
There are basically only two base coat colours of the horse and they are referred to as BLACK and RED. Every horse born is either Black or Red, it is other genetics on top of this that produces the wonderful coat colours that we see.

Black, produces your bays, browns and of course black

Red produces your chestnuts and all the shades, including liver

The shade of colour and intensity is controlled by the allele and agouti, although I have recently read a thread written by KarynK stating that there might be a Black & Tan gene recently found, but I am not too sure about that?

Colour genetics is fascinating

This is an easy to understand website

http://www.horsecolor.com/basics/starting_point.htm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top