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winter coat color

colorfan January 01, 2012 January 01, 2012

Forums

Does anyone have a theory as to why some colors darken in the winter and some lighten? What brought me to this question is observing how my buckskin stays somewhat the same color or darker in her winter and a neighbors buckskin is considerably lighter in her winter coat than in her summer coat. :-?

CMhorses Fri, 01/06/2012 - 04:06

We have a lightly sooty one that stays the same shade (rather golden) in the winter and his buckskin son, who is not sooty at all, gets very light in the winter and very gold in the summer. Two palominos from the same sooty buckskin, stay about the same in the winter and one is a little sooty and the other isn't, but both are rather golden in the summer. Also our brown mare is very light on her sides in the summer and very dark, almost completely black in the winter.
I suppose it has something to do with the longer hair shafts in the winter.

colorfan Fri, 01/06/2012 - 08:20

Oh, interesting. The buckskin that stays darker is sooty. At least in her winter coat she looks quite sooty.

I will watch for a sooty connection.

Is that what you are thinking JN?