# Distingusih buckskin bay from dun?



## KigerQueen (Jun 16, 2013)

The dun gene causes leg barring and a dorsal stripe, it can also caused webbing on the face. If a chesnut has the dun gene its called a red dun, if a black based horse has it its called a grulla. And if a bay based horse has it its just called dun (a little iffy on the last one). 

A buckskin is just a bay horse with a cream gene, so no stripes of any type. They may have counter shading but its not a stripe.


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## lilruffian (Jun 28, 2010)

^ what KigerQueen said. Another common distinguishing characteristic is that dun tends not to affect the face. It only lightens the body and restricts the original color to specific areas (spine, face & leg striping)
They also tend to have "frosting" in the mane.
It is also dominant, so it must be passed from parent to offspring. In other words, if the horse has it it will show.
Dun can also affect buckskins, however, making them a dunskin and palominos, making them dunalinos


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## Kyro (Apr 15, 2012)

Thank you both!  I'll try to remember that.


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## Peppy Barrel Racing (Aug 16, 2011)

You can also have a horse that is dun with a cream gene so you can have a palomino dun or a buckskin dun. This is my buckskin dun jackpot. Black+agouti+cream+dun.


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## Yogiwick (Sep 30, 2013)

Kyro said:


> I'm going over some basic genetics, but I've run into a wall. The buckskin bay is a black horse, with agouti and one cream gene. The dun horse could be, for instance, black, with agouti + dun. And the only way to distinguish between the two, would be that the dun has a dorsal stripe/stripes on legs or webbing on his face? And a buckskin horse won't have any of that?


Buckskin is a black + agouti + cream.
Dun is a black + agouti + cream.

Dun works on any color, as does cream.

Smokey black, buckskin, palomino are all cream. (Note-changes color names)
Grulla, dun, red dun, are all dun. (Note- (mostly) names stay the same, add dun. There is also nothing incorrect about saying "black dun" instead of grulla for ex.)
(Black, bay, chestnut)

The difference as far as that goes is two copies of cream dilute further (smokey cream, perlino, cremello) wheras dun is the same whether one copy or two.

They are both dilutions that will look somewhat similar on the same color and can be easily confused.

Dun's will have primitive markings (leg barring, webbing, face mask, dorsal, etc) Dorsal is a big one. Only duns have a true dorsal stripe though other horses may show countershading but they are noticeably different.

Duns tend to have different shades on the same horse and look more "orangey" imo. They tend to look minimally to moderately diluted.

Buckskins tend to have a uniform color (unless they have sooty or are "brownskins" (brown+cream instead of bay+cream)) and look more cream color. They tend to look moderately to extremely diluted. Buckskin imo changes more seasonally than dun.

(Those two paragraphs are from my opinions and experiences and are meant to be general descriptions, obviously individual horses vary!)

Both can have "frosting" in the mane.


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## Yogiwick (Sep 30, 2013)

Ahhh don't know how I missed that!!!

REWRITE-

Buckskin is black + agouti + cream.
Dun is black + agouti + DUN!


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## Kyro (Apr 15, 2012)

Yogiwick, I started to doubt your wisdom at that point haha. What, dun and cream are the same - dun is not even a gene, but it's just cream??  Good that it was a mistake, thanks for the detailed answer.


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## Yogiwick (Sep 30, 2013)

All your questions are easy to answer as they are one and the same!! lol. Oops! 

lol I hope someone would of corrected me if I hadn't caught it. Sometimes I don't write what I think!! Thank you for reading past the second sentence lol

Welcome 

I want to add that cream *tends* to dilute the mane.

For ex-
chestnut + cream = palomino ("white" mane)
chestnut + dun = red dun (usually the same if not darker mane)

So I do feel, generally speaking, cream/buckskin dilutes more, and will dilute the mane more.

Dun will not dilute the mane... the dorsal goes all the way up the mane and all the way into the tail it's not just the back (think of the mane on fjords!)


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