Question about colour>>Please help if you can!

Vickijay

Vickijay

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Hello,
A few days ago my mare had her first filly who is a black leopard spot (3 weeks early but every1s fine phew) At the moment she has black legs and a black mane and tail. Her body is white but covered in black spots.
Does any1 know if the legs and mane and tail will change as she grows up?
This is my first foal so I have not had experience of this b4 and looking on the internet i cant even find a pic of a black leopard with black legs/mane&tail!!!
Any help would be amazing, thanks
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She might shed out with her foal coat, could you put some pictures of her, because I would love to see her. What is her breeding
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When they are like that they are often called a near leopard. But I am sure KarynK will fill you in better than I can
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Pics please
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Hi

Congrats on your new foal
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Pics please. Is she similiarly marked to my stallion Pinocchio. There is a foal pic of him on my website

He has gradually lightened every year & this year his legs, mane & tail are all more white than black.
 
Nothing like a spotted horse however I thought I would share my experiences. I bred a miniature Shetland colt who was born jet brown with jet black points so assumed he would be bay however he turned silver/blue roan with in 2 years so I would not “trust” the colour of her baby coat as the colour she will stay especially blacks as it is quite usual for them to fade to grey or white. In fact I have herd it said that the Spanish riding school of Vienna look for the blackest foals they can find as these will be the purest white when they are older. Food for thought.
 
What a stunner! Looking at her I would say personally I think her face and ears will become allot whiter but you may find her legs stay black but fade with time as i suspect her will tail will.

Named Flicker meaning “pretty young girl”?

Congratulations!
 
She is out of a Knabstrupper and my tb mare. I hope she will get to about 16.1hh altho its hard to believe now cos shes tiny!
Flicker is the name of the website i put the pics on, im not sure what to call her, maybe dottie altho thats a bit cliché!! Any ideas???
 
Oooo i like Absolutly spot on and totally dottie. I think i prefer the first but prefer dottie for a normal knocking about name! Theres certainly alot to think about when you have a baby!
 
Hes a fewspot called Spots Guaranteed. Hes only 5 but hes thrown some craking babies so far this year
 
Hi, congratulations on your new arrival. She's lovely.

May I be so bold as to offer some advice? Your third pic worried me a little, due to the looseness of the cross surcingles and it's NOT your fault, it's a bug bear I have with manufacturers of foal rugs, as you simply cannot seem to make them short enough for foals!! It is so easy for the foal to get a leg caught in surcingles, that even though they have been tightened to the maximum, are still too loose. I dug out a hefty darning needle (it now lives in my plaiting kit) so that I can alter the length of the surcingles.
 
To _SN_, Thankyou for your concern. We were rather shocked when she came 3 weeks early and in the awfull weather, we had to get her covered up as it was pouring with rain. We didnt want to bring them in cos every1 else was out and we didnt want to upset my mare and worry the foal. I sat with her ready to make safe or untangle till the tack shop opened then the lady that owns the stud went to try get a smaller one! To no avail, they said 3' was the smallest so we did some nifty tying of the straps which made it safe. Its my mares fault for being so early on the mankyest day lol
Maybe they should make smaller ones, esp with the weather being so shoddy lol
 
Bless. Totally understandable dilema! I just wish that the manufacturers would put shorter straps on! AND there should be the option of LW, as they all seem to be MW - if it's a healthy foal that just needs to be kept dry (whatver reason) then with their thick. fluffy foal coats, the filling often makes them sweat! I've also stripped the filing out of mine LOL! She's out grown it now mind you - it's 3ft 9ins and she's only 2 months old.
 
Lovely filly and a very near near leopard! If she has inherited the varnish gene, I would think you will gradually loose all but the spots on the head and the mane and tail will lighten but not completely.
This one was born with much more initial coat colour than yours but you can see what the varnish does, but not all spotted horses have it and in some it is much slower.

http://www.putfile.com/album/179515
This one has kept most of the colour on her legs, she has the flaxen gene so her mane and tail are blonde not white.

So as always with these horses you'll have to wait and see, a good clue will be in her foal moult, if she looses colour in that then she will fade a little at every coat change, but not the spots.
 
Thats very interesting. Do you know what kind of % have the varnish gene?
I have looked at someof the other posts about this topic, it seems amazing!
So do u think that she could end up just being white if she has this gene?
Many thanks
 
To cruiseline- Oh my proxy wont allow me to view flicker, we are censored over here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't see the pictures

Do u have email, i could send them? or there on my facebook lol
 
Cruiseline - when I have 5 mins (I have two mares in season that need covering!) I’ll stick em in a thumbnail and post them here for you.

A large proportion of appaloosas born with some coat colour do have visible varnish, but it does appear to vary in speed, the one in this series above can only have inherited it from her father who was a fewspot, so he didn’t show it being born white (also included in this category would be true leopards). Neither of course will it show on those that end up “white” including near leopards with no history. There is some conjecture that if a leopard has a halo effect round it’s spots then it has varnish, but I’ve not really looked into this, too much else to get my head round!

Some with varnish fade very slowly over years and into their twenties still show coat colour here’s one
http://www.putfile.com/album/177610
He still had a lot of visible coat colour at 19 and others fade quite quickly like the one above, so there may well be other factors at work as well, it is not down to simple inheritance with homozygous fading quicker as the filly above could only have 1 copy of it. (Typical appaloosa nothing is simple!).

There certainly are horses around that do not have the varnish which is why I would term it a coat pattern in itself it is not reliant on anything other than characteristics from what I have seen. A lot of horses born just coat colour + characteristics will fade out to reveal leopard like spots my sister and I believe these just have varnish and no other coat pattern, with those spots being just the result of the mottled skin rather than true leopard like your foal. It also depends on how much dark coat they had at birth, as how can you tell how long it would take if they only have a little bit to loose? It certainly raises the question of how you tell how potent the fading is in a particular horse?


One of the stallions I used last year
http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/ma+thunderstorm
Does not have varnish, I may well have snookered myself colour wise here as it appears I did what I wanted and got rid of the varnish, But I got no markings! Tthe filly out of what many would call a fewspot has minimal showing of characteristics (2 striped hooves, a tiny amount of mottled skin and sclera), and at the moment, though she has one or two white hairs I don’t think she will fade,
FridayFoalDayone.jpg

though her mother clearly has varnish as I have her foal pictures! Still this little lady was bred to do a job and I am not disappointed in what has arrived, in fact I am quite excited!

The one thing the varnish will never do is obliterate the spots that are already there, although they can move and change throughout life, but not significantly, this is probably down to the skin pigment in appaloosas being quite fluid. So whilst your foal might get a whiter background she will stay spotty! (That is why diagrams in passports for appaloosas are a pretty pointless futile exercise!).
 
VJ - your foal is stunning
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Love her markings. You may know already but in case you don't - if her sire is a graded Knab & if your TB mare is graded ( or if you get her graded) your foal could be eligible as main book Knabbie. PM me if you want any details.
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KayrnK - your foal looks super as well. I have seen some minimals go a stunning colour - the snowflake effect etc. I love that about Spotties- each one is an original
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Cruiseline - when I have 5 mins (I have two mares in season that need covering!) I’ll stick em in a thumbnail and post them here for you.


[/ QUOTE ]

I really read that wrong to begin with lol
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I thought you were suggesting that your 2 mares for covering would be put in thumbnails for ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Now I have read it correctly
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I would appreciate that KarynK thanks
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Your baby looks lovely and I really like the stallion too
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I am facinated by the spotty gene.
 
Ok couldnt resist, perhaps someone could advise wat my foal will turn out as as very confused on colour lol.

Out of a black leopardspot knabstrupper X F.I Pleasure> white with bluish/dapple grey patched stallion (classed as roan) and i end up with a chestnut/bay foal. i say chestnut/bay because his body is light bay with black mane and tail however his legs are pale chestnut and one white sock. However in some light they have a greyish tinge to them with pale cream under his belly and muzzle. dont know wat he is going to turn out like but im guessing no spots
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shame really because i wanted him to look more like his mom as we unfortunately had to have her put down 2 weeks after she foaled
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(even wondered if there could have been a mix up with straws as mare was A.I'd)
 
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