Putting a skewbald mare to a piebald stallion???

[nicola_g]

Does anyone have any experience / know anything at all about this?

Just wondering what colour foal you are ''likely'' to get i.e, skewbald, piebald or tri-coloured?

Original intention was to put skewbald to skewbald but have seen a really nice piebald stallion so just wondering ....

 

[Thistle]

you could get a plain coloured foal if both parents are heterozygous. No guarantee of colour unless one of them is homozygous.

 

[vhf]

Coat colour genetics is a complicated world, and without being "up" on it, it's a bit confusing.

The "skewbald" bit works just like white patches, what colour the non-white bits are depends on other genes.

And some horses will carry one colour (eg chestnut) hidden away but show another (eg bay) because the genes are more "dominant".

So, you have two different lotteries at work. One, will the parents (either of them) pass on the "skewbald" bit and give you white patches, and Two, what will the base colour that shows up be!

Whether you use two skewbalds, or a skew and a pie, you still have much the same lottery!

Without knowing their genetic make-up, you could be lookng at:-
1) All black. 2) All chestnut. 3) All bay. 4) Any of these with white. 5) A complete surprise that was hiding somewhere under all the other genes!

 

[volatis]

A piebald is simply a black horse with white patches (tobaino), a shewbald is simply any other colour, with those same white patches.

Red (chestnut) is recessive to black, so you dont know if the black and white stallion is carrying the chestnut gene hidden away. When you say skewbald you might mean bay and white, chestnut and white, palomino and white etc etc, so without more information no one can tell you whether the foal would be black, bay, chestnut etc etc.

What we can tell you is that you will either have a 75% chance of the foal inheriting the white patches from both or either parent. And if one of the parents is homozygous for tobiano, the foal will definatly have the white patches.

 

[madwoman]

I did this couple years ago knowing i wasnt guarentted colour but the stallion complimented my mare and we got bay colt with four white socks! total stunner

 

[KarynK]

Madwoman, yours might well have inherited a Tobiano gene as all the white spotting genes come in minimal form too, it depends on the white modifier genes and other factors as to how much white a horse has avaiable and shows.

http://www.goshka.co.uk/images/Youngstock/Arthur042008.jpg

 

[nicola_g]

Firstly big thank-you to everyone who took the time to reply.

On hindsight my question was not very well defined....

I was aware of this [ QUOTE ]
you could get a plain coloured foal if both parents are heterozygous. No guarantee of colour unless one of them is homozygous.

[/ QUOTE ].

Also understand that skewbald/piebald is just a colour with white patches.

What was eluding me was: If one parent was homozygous what 'base' colour the offspring would be, i.e., would my mares chestnut be inherited or would it be the stallions black.

However, as Volatis stated [ QUOTE ]
Red (chestnut) is recessive to black, so you dont know if the black and white stallion is carrying the chestnut gene hidden away.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would I be right to assume that if I did get a coloured foal the probability of him/her having red as it's base colour is very high with black being the next probable base colour??

I am using the term 'probability' very loosely here as I fully appreciate the complexity of equine genetics in relation to colour.