What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
Forums
Re: What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
is there any noticed pattern of how it is passed...example...two light bays will always produce light bays...or a light bay crossed with a dark bay can produce either...or a light bay crossed with dark bay produces middle of the road bays?
A cat person I was talking to earlier in the day asked me if hues in horses were caused by rufus genes (I had to hunt her down and ask her again just a bit ago)...which is what ultimately led to this question.
Re: What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
Well there is genetic coding "between the genes" that can account for various expressions. There is also a belief that some of the more extreme variances will eventually (in about a hundred years :rofl ) will prove to be modifying genes, like a "liver chestnut" gene, etc.
It does appear to be, to some extent, inheritable.
Re: What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
In the small animal world its called rufous polygenes. You can select for richness, look at the difference in colour between a show Belgian Hare and a wild agouti rabbit, both are black agouti in genotype. Its easy to select for colour in animals that can breed at three months and will have many babies in a litter. I guess in horses there are so many more important factors to consider when choosing breeding stock than richness of colour.
Re: What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
We bred a black to a "black" bay, and got a definite browny bay. We bred a black bay to a black bay and got a black bay. We bred a bright red bay to a black bay and got a mahogany bay...the same sire was used for all three. So no, I'm not sure what exactly what is going on, but I believe that there are a lot more genes involved with coat colour than we currently realise.
Diane
Re: What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
[quote="hoofpick"]And what about palomino with the deep rich orange or the light cream color..[/quote]
Which reminds me, new pixs of Goldie in her winter woolies -her "top line" and barrel have lightened up a lot, but is still darker than Arthur's winter woolies (he would go nearly white in winter). However, but her flanks, legs and chest are still a deep golden color (same as her summer coat).
taken this morning (sun was very bright after it decided to make an appearance, so the color seems a bit off, but is unaltered - only resized to fit on here)
[img]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i99/j…]
this shot was taken before the sun popped out, but you can still see how dark her flanks and legs are.
[img]http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i99/j…]
[b]EDITED TO ADD: Don't shoot me on the lack of quality, it's the best I can do with a 1 pixal cell phone...[/b] I broke down and bought d-i-l a 10.5 pix/4x zoom camera for Christmas out of self defense - I want my Kodak back.
Re: What Causes Richness Of Coat Color?
Nobody knows.