Splash white paper!

Yes thats what i read in some Forums, isn't that sad? Why would you turn your horse into a deaf one? handling a horse includes that they are shy and attentive. You can handle that!! We do since thousands of years. I think for the horse it's a handicap, not for the owner! The mare can't hear her foal calling her for example, a sad image.

[quote] MITF Promoter, PAX3 AND EDNRB Frame Overo causes only color on the neck or even white horses.[/quote] Can you explain what you mean by this?[/quote]

That the horses which carry three different "spotting" alleles can be quite white or show only a medicine hat or the melanocytes are only suited around the spine, cause they couldn't migrate down till the legs and head. http://www.shawsperformancehorses.com/s… as a example of a horse with at least three spotting allels (SW1, SW2, EDNRB)

All this mutations are affecting genes, which are responsible for melanocyte migration and development. The more mutations appear in this signaling cascade, the less melanocytes will survive and migrate over the body (in the skin)
This is fascinating.

I certainly wouldn't breed any two horses that would produce anything lethal in utero or otherwise, but as far as being deaf, if a horse that is deaf can do this...
00271197

1993 Stallion Registered with AQHA and APHA as Colonels Smoking Gun but also known as the famous GUNNER. Standing at Tim McQuay Stables. *Gunner* won 1996 NRHA Open Futurity Res Champion 1998 tied for Reserve Champion 2001 Champion USET Reining Championship LTE 177 670.00 $ NRHA Hall Of Fame 2 Millions Dollars Sire / / /

I really don't see what the problem is.

[quote=Spotting Girl]Isn't that sad? Why would you turn your horse into a deaf one? handling a horse includes that they are shy and attentive. You can handle that!! We do since thousands of years. I think for the horse it's a handicap, not for the owner! The mare can't hear her foal calling her for example, a sad image.[/quote] I don't find it sad at all. The horse doesn't know what it's missing and doesn't feel sad that it doesn't hear it's foal.

Deaf horses are viewed by some as better than their hearing counterparts. Why wouldn't you breed for better horses. It doesn't hurt them, they don't act any different and are in pretty much no danger of any "bad things" happening to them specifically because of their deafness.

Sure, there are two fronts. If I had a deaf horse, sure I would love it, but as a veterinarian I just have etic concerns about breeding animals with loss of functions.
The example of Gunner is known but the fact is:
The horse is obviously more concentrated and more successful in this sport but isn't that egoistic?
When I'm thinking about color pattern and genetic disorders, I don't look at the advantages for the owner, but the disadventages for the animal.
Why do we collect and donate money for deaf people if this isn't a handicap?

But I asked you, what do you think about that fact, and you told me. It was just interesting to hear the other side. :-?
I don't want to put someone right or snub you. :hammer

:grin: greetings

[quote=Spotting Girl]The horse is obviously more concentrated and more successful in this sport but isn't that egoistic?[/quote] Isn't everything we do to benefit us egotistic in some way?

[quote]Why do we collect and donate money for deaf people if this isn't a handicap?[/quote] Because for a human lifestyle it is a handicap. For horses in the wild it's a handicap. But horses in captivity being used by humans for humans it's an advantage.

Think of it like this. If you as a human had a dogs sense of smell, you could use it to help us track missing people. Advantage right? But now imagine you had to work in a sewage plant. Handicap right? Handicap or advantage all depends on the way you look at things.
[quote]I don't want to put someone right or snub you. [/quote]
Oh don't worry. You didn't offend me or anything at all. I really enjoy getting into debates like this. Like you said its interesting to hear the other side.

Every person I've talked to with a deaf splash white horse has loved it. One I met just last summer actually bred her deaf mare to a high white stallion and managed to produce her current show mare, who is also deaf. She is very pleased with her and would do so again.

I honestly don't have an opinion on the ethics of breeding for deaf horses, I've never really given it much though as all of my horses have almost no white at all. However, I can't see how, comparing a deaf horse to a deaf person is valid in this argument. Language is a huge barrier with deaf people and is the result of most of their handicap.

I also agree that because many SW horses are deaf that domestication and human intervention helped keep the gene from being rarer. It wasn't fostered by natural selection at all, but by artificial selection by humans. It was also an 'accidental' pattern that was carried on since older 'non pinto' breeds carry it and still have rules against pinto patterned individuals. It's heterozygous form helped it stay under the radar for a long time and we didn't even have a name for it as a separate pattern from other forms of pinto until relatively recently.