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Pink skin UNDER pigmented hair?

Hi Everyone Just wondering if someone can point me in the direction of good articles and or share your own personal knowledge with me regarding lack of skin pigment despite coat pigment. My Gypsy Cob yearling is a light pally, dark eyes mottled skin on his dock, sheath, testicles, bum and a few little sprinkles in the 'arm pit' region. He is also very heavily mottled so much so that unless you look closely you would just say dark skin around his eyes and muzzle. The rest of his skin is white / pink (same as a double cream dilute) despite having a colour wash if you will over most of his body, he does have some white markings... blaze, four white socks, belly splash, rump splash and a bit on his neck. His sire is pally, dam is chestnut with white mane and tail. I have e-mailed D. Phillip Sponenberg and here is our conversation, firstly his reply to basically the above and a whole lot of photos. Basically though Im still none the wiser. "Hmm. These are tough! I suspect he's a pale palomino sabino with lots and lots of white. That would explain the dark skin in some areas. As he matures the "colored" spots will likely end up more obviously gold. Phil" ----------------------------- "Thanks for your reply. So he will possibly darken? He is cream all over really, not a great deal of white like I said... so there is still a possibility he will darken despite the fact his skin is pink? Is there any further reading I can do? I am very interested to know the in's and out's of all of this. Would it be wise to re do the SB test? I'm also assuming he carries splash as the bottom half of his face is white as is his dam. Is there any where I can look up that will give me an indication of the types of white he will throw on his foals? Once again, thank you so much for your time. Regards, Melinda" ----------------------------- "I think he'll likely darken, and then we'll know better what sort of white patterns he has. He may well have splash, plus or minus sabino." Thanks

Daylene Alford Mon, 10/10/2011 - 19:17

Could you post pictures of the horse in question? Pictures of the sire and dam could possibly be helpful as well.

Glad you made it! Can't wait to see the pictures he sounds very interesting.

gypsycobs Mon, 10/10/2011 - 19:23

HI! :grin:

Yes, will post photos of him (bare with me while I figure it out)
For some reason though when the sun is out he looks white in photos and he isn't.

gypsycobs Mon, 10/10/2011 - 19:26

Dam: Liberty's Gold Touch Chestnut out of brown mare, don't know the sire's colour though

Sire: Shambo, Pally

gypsycobs Mon, 10/10/2011 - 20:58

Yeah it DOES look like Lp I know BUT where would it have come from? :-s
Its defiantly more like the Lp botty that the pally skin mottling on the right. I'm pretty sure his Mum isn't a non spotted spotty and his Dad defiantly isn't, however he has produced a fair few pally babies that were born very light like Bo who darken.
This pink skin thing though..... what do you think?

Daylene Alford Mon, 10/10/2011 - 21:11

There have been cases of LP being minimal enough to pass without notice. A few years ago there was a full blood Quarter Horse born with a spotted blanket.

I'm not saying that is the case with your boy just that it could be a possibility. It looks like he has sclera as well. What do his feet look like?

gypsycobs Mon, 10/10/2011 - 21:52

Hmmm! gah, tis a mystery x_x (even more of a mystery than my sitting here with a test tube in season mare wee warming under my arm - the things we do in the name of collecting stallions!)

So, where Dr Phillip Sponenberg said about the sabino etc... can this make horses have pink skin yet still retain pigment?
I really REALLY want to know how this can happen and all the possible causes. It's really got me stumped as I have always thought pink skin, the colour of a babies bum was exclusive to white markings.

I know you can get pink / tan skin with Champagne and Perl dilutes but other than that I have no idea and need enlightening.

Daylene Alford Mon, 10/10/2011 - 21:57

[quote]So, where Dr Phillip Sponenberg said about the sabino etc... can this make horses have pink skin yet still retain pigment?[/quote]

I have never seen a case with a white marking, where the skin was pink and the hair pigmented. I'm really interested in hearing with everyone else has to say about this.

gypsycobs Mon, 10/10/2011 - 22:03

... so you and me both then.
When I can I will take a photo of his skin to show you all that I'm not daft, and yes its pink under the colouration. But if you click on the fifth photo i the string of Bo ones you can see the colour of his arm pit skin, its the same on his body, just less spotting.
Also his breeders tested and he is colour tested to carry one cream gene, negative agouti and tobiano along with SB1

Threnody Mon, 10/10/2011 - 23:25

I agree with admin that LP seems possible. And on such light base color with some form of sabino roaning it could hide varnish. Hopefully the LP test will eventually be commercially available so if all else fails there is that.

He also could show more obvious white markings in those areas as he ages caused by sabino. Since he's a pali it might not show much at the moment.

I know that doesn't help much, but it might just be too early to get a clearer idea than the options already presented.

gypsycobs Tue, 10/11/2011 - 21:05

IF he had a spotted parent I would say Lp too... I have e-mailed and asked to get some close up photos of his dam's skin to see if that will give us any clues. Lets just say for arguments sake he was Lp.. It still doesn't explain the pink skin under the pigmented hair though does it?
Colour test wise, where should I start?

Threnody Wed, 10/12/2011 - 01:41

Lp can cause pink skin under unpigmented hair. Technically any pattern can, it's just not as common.

With LP though is much more likely to have pink skin and white hair not 'match up' together. LP by itself does not cause spotting. PATN (pattern) genes do that. You need 1 Lp and at least 1 PATN to get a spotted (spotted blanket/leopard) appearance. LP alone can create mottled skin, striped hooves, white scleras and varnish roan. LP horses also don't always express all 4 of those characteristics. If the parents lack mottled skin it doesn't necessarily rule LP out.

Palomino itself can cause a bit of a mottled appearance to skin, but I haven't seen it that dramatic before. He might gain more pigment there in time to be honest and in that case it's all on his cream gene doing that.

gypsycobs Mon, 10/17/2011 - 21:27

In reply to by Daylene Alford

[quote=Threnody]Lp can cause pink skin under unpigmented hair. Technically any pattern can, it's just not as common.[/quote]

Do you mean pigmented?

Also still no word back from his breeder re his dam's skin :-?

gypsycobs Tue, 10/18/2011 - 13:57

Yes, elaboration please :) Pink skin under pigmented hair is my main question and I would actually love to understand the ways of such a thing.

Threnody Tue, 10/18/2011 - 20:35

Sometimes markings can get 'halos' of the hair and skin pigmentation not matching up. Then you can get extreme rabicanos with pink skin around the flanks and armpits under mostly pigmented hair. Again, not as dramatic as LP is capable of.

gypsycobs Tue, 10/18/2011 - 20:52

Arr like that! Yes I know what you mean and have seen it plenty enough times BUT not on a whole body, every inch apart from a liner around his eyes and the mottled effect under his tail, butt and manhood with those few in his arm pits.. what does that?

Threnody Tue, 10/18/2011 - 21:03

Sorry. :( I can't really get a better idea of his situation from my own knowledge base without more time for him to mature or an LP gene test. I'd say if his skin color doesn't fill in and closer resemble the cream skin example admin posted that LP is the best bet for an answer.

Daylene Alford Tue, 10/18/2011 - 21:28

[quote]Sometimes markings can get 'halos' of the hair and skin pigmentation not matching up[/quote] All the halos I've seen have been dark skin under white hair. Do you have any examples of the opposite happening on regular white markings? I'd love to see it. Post subject excluded of course hehe.

gypsycobs Tue, 10/18/2011 - 22:13

Sorry probably a dumb question, can you test for Lp now?
What other tests are worth getting done?

Threnody Tue, 10/18/2011 - 22:34

Of course when I start looking I can't find any good closeup pictures. It's harder to catch in an image of it than black skin showing through white hair. The latter being more common to begin with. I have seen it once in person on an old school horse. It was more obvious on the muzzle since the dark hair was thinner and the pink skin showed through. All of the edges on most of her markings were fairly roany though so I'm thinking that had something to do with it.

Daylene Alford Tue, 10/18/2011 - 22:54

That is really interesting, I'm going to have to start paying closer attention to the edges of markings.

I'm not sure that any tests would help much. There isn't a test for LP and you already know his extension and cream status. If silver is a possibility you could test for that and sabino 1. Unfortunately, none of those will help solve the mystery.

I feel like I'm missing something on the testing but it's escaping me atm.

gypsycobs Thu, 10/20/2011 - 16:56

Hi again

I have received an e-mail from his breeder.

___________________________

"About Liberties Gold Touch (mother), Yes she also has some mottling, under her tail, around her genitles and on her udder. I'm hoping to travel over to Sean this weekend and i'll try to photogragh these markings, Sean said to tell you that Bo Shambu had blue eyes when he was born, he says there is no question as to parentage and to let us know if you need more hair samples for DNA testing. We had Bo Shambu tested with a company called Animal Genetics in England and the results they sent back were - ee aa nCr."
___________________________

Brigid send's photos as they come off the camera, which is to say 15 MB each so I blew them up and can see Bo still had blue eyes here (I assume a couple of months) don't know if this is any help? Here is a close up and then the original image.

gypsycobs Thu, 10/20/2011 - 17:56

No, he doesn't have that. My Aunties, sisiter in laws husband had it though. Also Bo was born with pink and Vitiligo is an acquired skin condition. If he had it he would have been born with regular skin (due to the cell protection in the womb) and he would have start to get the odd patch of white here and there as he got older. In humans it doesn't start to appear until a child is roughly 10 years of age, if a person is going to develop it at all it will have started before 40 years of age.

Vitiligo (pronounced vit-ill-EYE-go) is a pigmentation disorder in which melanocytes (the cells that make pigment) in the skin are destroyed. As a result, white patches appear on the skin in different parts of the body. Similar patches also appear on both the mucous membranes (tissues that line the inside of the mouth and nose) and the retina (inner layer of the eyeball).