Now River Otter's Genetics 101

[Peaches Lee]

Color genetics are crazy!!

I've never heard of Pangere or Mealy! Is this a Connemara thing or does it happen across all breeds?

Sounds like it's the opposite of agouti?--I don't know, color genetics are not my thing LOL!

 

[RiverOtter]

@Peaches Lee it's more a pony thing than a horse thing, but it's not terribly uncommon. But it's also not understood.

Look up Exmoor Ponies, they ALL have it. A lot of the breeds called "primitive" have it. It was thought to be what made a seal brown, but we know now it doesn't (and we're still not entirely sure what does). And you can't test for pangere ... but you can test for black. Nighthawk tests black, but visually looks seal brown and has an ancestor and a foal with pangere - but black horses have had those things and NOT visually displayed it themselves, and we don't know why. We also still don't know why some blacks fade, and some don't.

Who knew black horses could be so mysterious!

It's one of those weird things we're still studying

 

[ShrekDawg]

@Peaches Lee it's more a pony thing than a horse thing, but it's not terribly uncommon. But it's also not understood.

Look up Exmoor Ponies, they ALL have it. A lot of the breeds called "primitive" have it. It was thought to be what made a seal brown, but we know now it doesn't (and we're still not entirely sure what does). And you can't test for pangere ... but you can test for black. Nighthawk tests black, but visually looks seal brown and has an ancestor and a foal with pangere - but black horses have had those things and NOT visually displayed it themselves, and we don't know why. We also still don't know why some blacks fade, and some don't.

Who knew black horses could be so mysterious!

It's one of those weird things we're still studying

Fascinating!

 

[ShrekDawg]

I still would guess bay though. Does this mean other bay horses may not actually be bay then?

 

[ShrekDawg]

Also can we see her test results? I’m super curious.

 

[Peaches Lee]

Such cute ponies...the Exmoor

Amazing example of the coloring on this (I would guess) mare...look at them dapples!

 

[RiverOtter]

@The Dawg her test results have been packed away in a box of papers for a few years now and I'm not terribly inclined to dig them out. When I get my next horse color tested - and I do have one to do - I will post the papers so you can see what they look like.

And bay horses are bay, but dark bay horses might be dark bay, bay with sooty, black with lots of fade, very rarely black with pangere (which does not effect all black horses that pass it!) seal brown or smoky black.

Sundance, the horse I need tested, I can NOT get a good picture of her. I'll post a crappy one, but you can at least kinda see her weird color, which is a lot more confusing in person. In her winter fuzzies, if you look at her from behind or shine a flashlight on her, she's really buckskin, from the front and in the daylight, brown. Her foal coat was buckskin, shed out very dark brown, then lightened again. I bought her mother (visual black, but may be smoky black) with her at side as a tiny foal, and her father is a total mystery.

Whatever her color technically is, I love it, the warm, honey toned brown is just luscious, especially when the sun hits her dapples.

And, for fun, her baby picture, just to prove that foal coats mean NOTHING

 

[Peaches Lee]

@RiverOtter Do you have any normal animals?

....glimpses wolf casually walking in background!

On a more serious note, your horses look like they live in the lap of luxury!

 

[RiverOtter]

@RiverOtter Do you have any normal animals?

....glimpses wolf casually walking in background!

On a more serious note, your horses look like they live in the lap of luxury!

Hahahaa! I just have a LOT of animals. And thank you, I try to take really good care of them.

And Sunni gets that reaction a lot, but she's a German Shepherd. With weird color genetics Ok, so, she has a reverse mask, which is not terribly uncommon, the original Rin Tin Tin from the very old TV show was the most famous reverse-mask GSD. And then, when you breed GSDs, the rule is to breed in a sable or bi-color every other generation, because the ones that look like Rin Tin Tin (called saddle backed) are born black, but have a fading gene. If you don't continually breed in dogs that don't' have it, you get too many copies of the fading gene and the dog just ...keeps...fading, which gives a "bright" colored dog, which used to be specifically described as disallowed in the standard, but now isn't (if you get an old breed book from the 80s, you'll find her color perfectly described, and disqualified from the show ring)

Sunni's 3 generation pedigree doesn't have a single dark/non-fading dog in it, and half the pups in her litter were "bright" Check out her 5 month puppy pic vs her at 5 years


Maybe I subconsciously collect them because I have such a fascination with genetics

 

[ShrekDawg]

@The Dawg her test results have been packed away in a box of papers for a few years now and I'm not terribly inclined to dig them out. When I get my next horse color tested - and I do have one to do - I will post the papers so you can see what they look like.

And bay horses are bay, but dark bay horses might be dark bay, bay with sooty, black with lots of fade, very rarely black with pangere (which does not effect all black horses that pass it!) seal brown or smoky black.

Sundance, the horse I need tested, I can NOT get a good picture of her. I'll post a crappy one, but you can at least kinda see her weird color, which is a lot more confusing in person. In her winter fuzzies, if you look at her from behind or shine a flashlight on her, she's really buckskin, from the front and in the daylight, brown. Her foal coat was buckskin, shed out very dark brown, then lightened again. I bought her mother (visual black, but may be smoky black) with her at side as a tiny foal, and her father is a total mystery.
View attachment 3256384
Whatever her color technically is, I love it, the warm, honey toned brown is just luscious, especially when the sun hits her dapples.

And, for fun, her baby picture, just to prove that foal coats mean NOTHING
View attachment 3256398

Ah okay that makes sense, thanks! And she’s pretty!!