Will my filly turn grey?

L&B

L&B

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Here is my filly at 3months old. I am wondering if you guys think she will colour out to grey or not?

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She is now fully 7months and looks pretty 'standard bay' - her legs/muzzle have darkened up to deep bay and her coat is rich bay. The star (or pac-man if you like :P) on her head still remains and as far as I can see her coat looks bay through and through. No sign of white/greying hairs anywhere, none around eyes/lashes.
Tail and mane are black.

As you can see her Mum is a very pretty dapple in the background.
And her Dad is a traditional piebald.

I am in love with her completely, so I have no worries over the colour she will go, just very curious :) :)
 
From looking at the pic id say possibly not. As grey is a dominant gene it is possible her mum only had one copy and passed on the non grey gene to your filly and she obviously can't have got one from the stallion. It's possible she won't but tricky to tell at this stage :)
 
twiggy2 said:
i think she will stay bay but have little knowledge on colours.

what makes you think she will grey out?
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Just her mama in the background :)
And also her having changed from this missmatch of colours to a quite solid bay in such a short space of time...
I also have absolutely NO idea about colour genetics :D
 
Do you have a picture of her face at a couple of days old? They usually have quite obvious spectacles if going grey.

You could get her DNA tested. It's about £20 or so. If her dam has had non-grey foals before she's got a 50% chance of not being grey.
 
Kallibear said:
Do you have a picture of her face at a couple of days old? They usually have quite obvious spectacles if going grey.

You could get her DNA tested. It's about £20 or so. If her dam has had non-grey foals before she's got a 50% chance of not being grey.
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Ahhhh I'm afraid no pics, and her breeders don't either.
Not to worry on the DNA test :) I'm not desperate (just yet, give me time to get all excited heh) just yet... For now I shall ponder :D
 
My old horse, that I purchased as a yearling, was dark bay but vet must have had a inkling of cour change as on vaccs certificate had 'bay ???'. He started getting these lovely big white spots and eventually greyed out by the time he was 3.
 
MiniBlitzen said:
You can usually tell in the first few weeks when they get the grey goggles. She looks bay to me. And adorable
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Nawwww thanks :) I agree, but then I'm biased :D

Jonesy said:
My old horse, that I purchased as a yearling, was dark bay but vet must have had a inkling of cour change as on vaccs certificate had 'bay ???'. He started getting these lovely big white spots and eventually greyed out by the time he was 3.
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And that's v interesting, out of curiosity, where did your boy start to grey first? :)
 
On the opposite end of the scale, only today I was looking at a 7yo horse for sale, clearly dark brown/black yet is registered as grey. An unusual facial marking and a few stray white hairs on the face must have confused the vet doing the marking sheet
 
MiniBlitzen said:
On the opposite end of the scale, only today I was looking at a 7yo horse for sale, clearly dark brown/black yet is registered as grey. An unusual facial marking and a few stray white hairs on the face must have confused the vet doing the marking sheet
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Huh! You can't write it! Ennit weird how that can throw everything and a few different genes can change everything...??? fascinates me, I'm just too dumb to understand it all :o:eek:
 
Grey is the easiest to understand!

Like all genes, they have two copies of that particular colour gene. If they have offspring they will give one or the other (not both) to their baby. Baby therefore gets one from mum and one from dad.

Grey is dominate so if one of those colour gene says 'grey' they WILL go grey. Both genes could be grey genes but you can't tell without a test. They can't be a 'secret' grey and have hidden grey genes. If they have even one grey gene they'll be grey.

For your foals dad, he's clearly no grey gene because he's not gone grey. That means that baby got a non-grey gene from him.

Mum may be one grey gene or she may have two grey genes. . You can't tell just by looking. If she's only one then baby has a 50% chance she got the grey gene (and will go grey) and 50% that she didn't. If mum has two grey genes then baby will have to have got one grey and will therefore go grey. That's what I asked if mum had ever had a non-grey baby before.

Tobiano (colour patched) is the same. Dad obviously only has one 'coloured' gene because, although he himself is patchy, he's given a non-patchy gene to baby.
 
She should stay bay, if the foal has the lighter leg colouring where its going to eventually be black (normal bay genetics) ie below the knees as her foal coat then its a good indication they are not going to gey out. It is normal for foals to be born slightly different colouring to their adult colour and the will have a change of coat around a few months old. I too have a dapple grey mare who had a bay foal with light coloured legs, and is now a lovely mahongy bay as a 2 year old - with regards to goggles/ how quick they go grey it depends on the individual and whether they have two copies of the grey gene from their parents, either way she looks lovely and very cheeky ! Have fun with her, sadly they grow up way too quickly !
 
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Kallibear said:
Grey is the easiest to understand!

Like all genes, they have two copies of that particular colour gene. If they have offspring they will give one or the other (not both) to their baby. Baby therefore gets one from mum and one from dad.

Grey is dominate so if one of those colour gene says 'grey' they WILL go grey. Both genes could be grey genes but you can't tell without a test. They can't be a 'secret' grey and have hidden grey genes. If they have even one grey gene they'll be grey.

For your foals dad, he's clearly no grey gene because he's not gone grey. That means that baby got a non-grey gene from him.

Mum may be one grey gene or she may have two grey genes. . You can't tell just by looking. If she's only one then baby has a 50% chance she got the grey gene (and will go grey) and 50% that she didn't. If mum has two grey genes then baby will have to have got one grey and will therefore go grey. That's what I asked if mum had ever had a non-grey baby before.

Tobiano (colour patched) is the same. Dad obviously only has one 'coloured' gene because, although he himself is patchy, he's given a non-patchy gene to baby.
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Oooooo, well done on explaining kallibear. I understood almost all of that!! Thats the best it has ever been explained to me!! :) Ty!
 
Very true kallibear, realised after posting OP hadnt said if dam had a grey dam and sire, was in middle of editing when you posted :). OP my grey mare came to me as a jet black 5 month old foal and i knew she had a grey gene, (had her tested) but she only started greying out at 2 years old, gaining the odd white hairs on her body to start with, and by three she was a definate v dark grey with flecks of white hairs in her mane and tail, by four she was starting to dapple on her neck and by five when she had her own foal she was a lovely dapple grey all over, she's 8 this year and is going a lighter dapple grey slowly - its lovely to see the change each time she sheds her coat, its like having a new horse each time :). Will try and put some pics up when back on the laptop
 
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If it helps further, grey itself isn't a real colour. It's what happens to a base colour. They start of with a base colour (bay, black or chestnut) and you add a grey gene over the top and they will slowly (or not so slow!) go grey.

To confuse matters further there are other genes you can add to make the base colour different. They are all bay, chestnut or black but if you add a dilute (think milk to coffee) they'll go creamy ( so buckskin, palamino or cremollo). What color depends on the base colour nd how many genes they get.

There's a couple of weird and wonderful extras you can get too like silver dapple but they're not common.

Appalossa and coloured (tobiano) are like the grey gene. They either get it or they don't, they work on top of a base colour, they can work along side a dilute and they can work together. That's why you could have a horse with palamino patches with spots on them (a coloured appy) that slowly greys out.
 
Bennions Field said:
Very true kallibear, realised after posting OP hadnt said if dam had a grey dam and sire, was in middle of editing when you posted :). OP my grey mare came to me as a jet black 5 month old foal and i knew she had grey genes, (had her tested) but she only started greying out at 2 years old, gaining the odd white hairs on her body to start with, and by three she was a definate v dark grey with flecks of white hairs in her mane and tail, by four she was starting to dapple on her neck and by five when she had her own foal she was a lovely dapple grey all over, she's 8 this year and is going a lighter dapple grey slowly - its lovely to see the change each time she sheds her coat, its like having a new horse each time :). Will try and put some pics up when back on the laptop
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Awww hehe. Like a little moodstone :D deffo pics! I'd love that!
I love bays, my old boy was was Bay, but maybe it's what I needed for her to catch my eye and make a change ;)
 
Kallibear said:
If it helps further, grey itself isn't a real colour. It's what happens to a base colour. They start of with a base colour (bay, black or chestnut) and you add a grey gene over the top and they will slowly (or not so slow!) go grey.

To confuse matters further there are other genes you can add to make the base colour different. They are all bay, chestnut or black but if you add a dilute (think milk to coffee) they'll go creamy ( so buckskin, palamino or cremollo). What color depends on the base colour nd how many genes they get.

There's a couple of weird and wonderful extras you can get too like silver dapple but they're not common.

Appalossa and coloured (tobiano) are like the grey gene. They either get it or they don't, they work on top of a base colour, they can work along side a dilute and they can work together. That's why you could have a horse with palamino patches with spots on them (a coloured appy) that slowly greys out.
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I wondered about appys. And Roan aswell, we have a strawberry Roan on our yard and like you were saying about the base:hers looks grey.
Well this has been very educational , you should teach this stuff. Honestly!!
 
L&B i too love bays, my old mare is a bay, she's 30 now, and still with me, just. I had a foal from her when she was younger, he's 23 this year! His sire was a lovely mahogony (sooty) bay like my mare and the foal came out bright chestnut ! Never did figure out what happened there??? He's ended up a lovely rich deep golden chestnut with almost flaxen mane and tail, so i really cant work out where he came from, it certainly shocked me. Perhaps some of the more knowledgable colour experts can desipher that one???
 
Roan is like grey and appy (but 'dominance' is more confusing) . They have a base colour then roan on top. So they can be black roan (called blue roan usually) chestnut roan or bay roan. The chestnut and bay are very similar shade but a bay roan will have black legs mane and tail. You can get a coloured, appy, roan buckskin (so a bay 'dilute') that's going grey. Add each colour on top of each other and you can imagine what it looks like!)

Meant to add earlier that a bay with single cream dilute (milk in your coffee) is buckskin (similar to dun). A chestnut with single cream is a palamino. Two dilutes give you cremello or perlino. And a black with creme is smokey black (a silvery grey colour).

The dun gene is very similar but only found in a few breeds. Connemaras do NOT have a dun gene but cream is common. Therefore 'dun' Connies are not actually dun, they're buckskin (similar golden colour with black mane, legs and tail)
 
Bennions Field said:
L&B i too love bays, my old mare is a bay, she's 30 now, and still with me, just. I had a foal from her when she was younger, he's 23 this year! His sire was a lovely mahogony (sooty) bay like my mare and the foal came out bright chestnut ! Never did figure out what happened there??? He's ended up a lovely rich deep golden chestnut with almost flaxen mane and tail, so i really cant work out where he came from, it certainly shocked me. Perhaps some of the more knowledgable colour experts can desipher that one???
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It's more confusing to think this way but horse actually only come in chestnut or black. Black is dominate to chestnut : they need two chestnut genes to be chestnut. So a black can be 'hiding' a chestnut but a chestnut cannot hide a black.

You then add agouti (bay) to that. In simple terms all it does is make the legs mane and tail black and mess about with the coat colour, making it darker or lighter (I.e a brown colour) I can't remember it completely but I'm guessing it's dominate. If they get a bay gene, they'll be a variation of bay.

Which is why your bay mare must have been either homozygous chestnut (chestnut base) or heterozygous chestnut (black base) with a single bay gene (so didn't give baby a bay) and dad the same. So he got chestnut from both and no bay genes from either. The flaxen mane and light legs is a addition modifier (like a dilute but less dominate) that their stronger genes hid.

I think. I get confused with the bay gene. Faracat is much better at this, if you ask her.
 
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Thanks kallibear, he usually confuses most people, and especially when his grand parents were bay too, though i do think my mares dam was poss a soothy buckskin rather than bay, so perhaps thats where the creme came from? Genes are really complex especially the more odd colourings - but still facinating ;)
 
If he had cream he'd be palamino (if chestnut base) or buckskin ( if bay) or sooty black ( if black base). Cream always expresses itself so can't 'skip' generations. If mum had it to pass on, she'd have shown it. The sooty gene Is more subtle and can he hidden and therefore skip generations (it's effects are less obvious and usually lightens manes tails or muzzles)

It sounds like he just didn't get any bay genes and therefore shows his base colour fully. Chestnut (the best colour ;)) in this case.
 
Our Felix started going grey from the legs. His eyes have been the last to turn, which means he has darker goggles and always looks a bit worried/sad. I think we may lose the goggles with the next moult though.
 
Thanks all!! Pics more than welcome, I'd love to see their changes
How exciting. I met my fillys half sister who was grey (practically white) but she was out of a different stallion and her mum's Mum, who was also grey and the spitting image of her Mum.
I reckon I'm gonna get a grey... Lol. Might take bets from people as she looks that solidly Bay now you'd never know without knowing :D (if that makes sense) haha :)
What's betting I won't be able to hold back from getting her tested :D
 
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