Coloured question

AMW said:
so what would a piebald mare (skewbald x blue&white) produce to a palomino (palomino xchestnut)
Is there anyway to know from the coat pattern if a horse is homozygous, I have read of a pawprint or spots being a sign.
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The problem is that you really need to know more background. Was the skewbald a chestnut or bay skewbald? What is the base colour of the blue and white?

Grey is a dominant gene that effectively removes the colour from the coat - so all horses are black or chestnut, but add in the grey gene and whatever the colour of horse starts out as it will turn grey as it gets older. To find out what the possibilities are with the piebald x palomino, you'd need to know what the piebald is carrying.

To get a piebald mare then either the skewbald or the grey must have been black - either the skewbald was a bay skewbald (black + agouti) or the grey had a black base colour - or both. One or both would have passed the black gene to the piebald, but does the piebald have one or two black genes?
 
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If the piebald has two black genes then it can only pass on black to the foal - so the foal will have a black base colour. The palomino has a chestnut base colour and can only pass on the chestnut base colour. So if the piebald has two black genes then the base colour of any foal would be black carrying chestnut.

If the piebald has one black gene and one chestnut gene (which could have been passed from the skewbald if it was a chestnut skewbald or the blue & white if the blue & white was a chestnut grey, a black carrying chestnut grey, etc) then it could equally pass a black gene or chestnut gene to the foal so there would be a 50% chance it would be black and 50% chance of chestnut.

Then on top of that you have the palomino diluting gene - palomino is due to a dominant diluting gene and the palomino only has one (if it had 2 genes it would be cremello). So there is a 50% chance the palomino could pass on the diluting gene, and 50% chance it won't.
 
AMW said:
faracat - the grey and white was black and white, her parents were sire -skewbald & dam -piebald.
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So you have piebald from skewbald (which could have passed black to the piebald if it was a bay skewbald or passed chestnut the piebald if it was a chestnut skewbald) x blue&white (which was black before it greyed out but could have received the black from the skewbald parent if that skewbald parent was a bay skewbald or chestnut if the skewbald parent was a chestnut skewbald) x piebald which could have passed the black gene to the blue&white or if it was a piebald carrying chestnut could have passed the chestnut gene to the blue&white.

I take it you know for certain that the blue & white was in fact black to start with - because if the skewbald parent of the blue&white was a chestnut skewbald and if the piebald parent of the blue&white was black carrying chestnut, then the blue&white could have been chestnut before it greyed out?

To know more it really depends on what colours the skewbalds were - as skewbald is such a vague term meaning any colour other than black with a white pattern so dun&white, blue&white, bay&white, chestnut&white, palomino&white, etc are all skewbalds.
 
AMW said:
faracat - the grey and white was black and white, her parents were sire -skewbald & dam -piebald.
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It is possible that there is a hidden chestnut gene. As stated earlier 'skewbald' doesn't differentiate between chestnut coloureds and black based (but not black because the's a modifying gene present) coloureds.

So - Piebald X Palomino.

We know that the piebald has at least one coloured/pinto gene (probably tobiano). No agouti, seal brown or other black modifiers.

The palomino is chestnut based, but could carry black modifiers because they don't show on chestnuts.

Do either of them show sabino or splash white traits? Eg jagged edged socks, apron face etc... (maybe photos would help here?)


If the piebald is heterozygous for tobiano then he/she has a 50% chance of a tobiano foal. If he/she is homozygous, then 100% chance of a tobiano foal.

Base colour - if the piebald has a hidden chestnut gene, then you have a 50% chance of a chestnut based colour because the palomino can only pass on chestnut.

If the piebald is homozygous for black then the foal will be black because one black and one chestnut gene = black foal.

The palomino has a 50% chance of passing on the cream gene. So that gives you a chance of having a palomino foal (if the foal is chestnut based) or smoky black (if the foal is black based). If the palomino has a 'hidden' agouti gene, then you also have a chance of a buckskin foal (black + agouti + cream).

If the palomino is hiding seal brown, you could also get seal brown + cream.

There is a huge list of possible colours because so many options are possible, because we don't know exactly what genes the two potential parents have.

Black
Chestnut
Bay
Seal brown
Smoky black
Palomino
Buckskin (either bay or seal brown + cream)

Black tobiano
Chestnut tobiano
Bay tobiano
Seal brown tobiano
Smoky black tobiano
Palomino tobiano
Buckskin (either bay or seal brown + cream) tobiano
 
There is the added complication with tobiano gene and the extension gene (that makes chestnut if the mutation is present) in that the two genes travel together most of the time, so a black heterozygous tobiano that carries chestnut and carries the tobiano on his black allele side will always either sire black based tobianos or solid chestnuts unless crossover occurs when the cells divide in meiosis. You will find black based tobianos are way more common than chestnut based ones because of this.
 
this is my filly with her sire & dam



the dam was by a chestnut & white out of a black and white, she was definately black and white before greying out

this pic shows the granny, dam & my filly



The palomino is by a palomino out of a chestnut, he carries the sabino gene, I would say my filly does too as she has the jaggy edged socks, chin spot etc.

its all a bit hypothetical at the moment but a cross we intend doing in the future. I will be getting her tested to see if she is homozygous.
 
AMW said:
its all a bit hypothetical at the moment but a cross we intend doing in the future. I will be getting her tested to see if she is homozygous.
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Get her tested for chestnut too. As her sire is chestnut tobiano, she might be Ee (one black gene and one chestnut). I agree that you filly has sabino. :)
 
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