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What color is my foal?

 

My lovely filly was born this summer, I first thought her to be some kind of liver chestnut who would grey, at 2 months she looked like this:

and now, soon to be 5 months, she's gone to this:

 

Our ID-controller registrered her as brown, but once again she looks lika a liver chestnut, and she still hasn't started to grey as I first thought she would.

I've never seen a chestnut get born with that kind of color. :S

Any thoughts?

 

She's by a chestnut-stallion, out of the grey mare you can see in the photos.

Daylene Alford Mon, 10/21/2013 - 10:36

I going to go with brown on this one although black and liver chestnut could still be possible.  That would be a very unusual foal coat for a Liver Chestnut however.   Here are some photos of a smokey brown (brown + cream).  The foal coat is remarkably similar to your foal.  

http://colorgenetics.info/equine/gallery/bay-brown-and-wild-bay/whiskey/whiskey-6-16-092

Have you considered testing?  Sometimes a test is the only way to know for sure.  

I will also add that I don't see signs of gray either but I wouldn't entirely rule out gray just because of her unusual shade.  Gray can darken a horse before taking the color away.  I have seen gray palominos that could easily be mistaken for buckskins before they start to go white so it is possible that gray is playing with her color.  

Mistimed Mon, 10/21/2013 - 12:34

In reply to by Daylene Alford

I have been hoping for brown because it feels like the color with the highest chans of her keeping the color and not going grey, but now when her foal coat is off of her legs too, I noticed she's not black on her legs. Which makes me think liver chestnut again, althoug I HAVE seen black foals looking like she does at the same age. Or at least one or two. :P Black is unlikely, but not impossible. 

I have also taken inte consideration her sabino-gene, I know of a (tested) brown pony with sabino whose leg (the only one without a high sock) isn't black, and apparantly sabino can mess a bit with the color as well, although how much I can't say.

The smoky brown is similar, but has a warmer and lighter tone, much like mine when her foal coat had been sun-bleached.

Is "cream" the english word for our "yellow"? Like palomino which is red+yellow?

 

I have considered testing, yes, and will post my letter with strands of her tail tomorrow, but will have to wait a month for results. At the very least.

 

She's been a mystery since she arrived, this one. ^^ 

Mistimed Thu, 10/31/2013 - 14:43

Unfortunatly, I don't. I only know I can't rule out any color at all, after investigeting the colors in her lines. Her mother was brown, but had chestnut siblings so she can have a red gene. I don't know what her grey father's base color was (Athlet Z) either.

Her other 2 offsprings was born bay and didn't grey. They both had bay sires.

 

Right now she looks lika a sunbleached black, even darker than she is in the photo above. 

Mistimed Tue, 11/12/2013 - 16:01

Test result came back, so I know now she is NOT a chestnut, forgot to fill in to test for agouti, and don't plan to redo it anytime soon, so brown, black and grey are the possible colors.

She now looks like this in direct sunlight:

And like this when it's cloudy (pictures taken the same day):

 

Weird filly. *ROFL*

PeppyBarrelRacing Wed, 11/27/2013 - 20:18

Honestly from the foal pics and the ones of her older I am pretty certain she is black. I've seen several black foals born a similar color to her. She is lovely. A lot of brown agouti babies I've seen look more like bays when first born.

rabbitsfizz Sun, 12/08/2013 - 08:22

I'd say definitely Brown, just looking at the nose, which is my very first port of call when judging these things irrespective of coat colour! She has a Brown nose- ergo, she is Brown! Nice filly, btw.

rabbitsfizz Fri, 01/03/2014 - 12:54

Well, in the absence of testing, yes after all a Brown horse can still have black(black ish)  legs......

Mistimed Fri, 01/10/2014 - 00:29

In reply to by Mistimed

Here's the right side of her muzzle, the left is not as light at all:

And then there's these light spots on her right shoulder:

 

Still nothing bot brown around her eyes though:

 

Not very good pictures, but you get the point, and the reason why I think she's another grey horse. :P

Mistimed Wed, 05/21/2014 - 11:08

Thanks for all the comments, if anyone is curious as to what color she turned out to be I can hereby pronounce she actually is grey. :) 

She's really grey around the muzzle now, and there has also come some white hairs on her body (but you'd be hard pressed to see it if you're not actually looking). At a distance she still looks dark though. :)

 

11 months:

 

Daylene Alford Wed, 05/21/2014 - 13:26

Wow, that is a lovely trot!  

 

So, I guess it was gray playing with the foal coat after all.  Thanks for posting and letting us know what color she ended up.