# What colour would foal most likely be?



## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

With that information, your possibilities are chestnut, brown, and black. But, you'd only get a chestnut if the sire was heterozygous black (only carrying one copy of the black gene). If the stallion is homozygous (two copies) for black, your possibilities are brown and black.
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## Georgia12 (Dec 20, 2014)

The stallions grand sire is bay as well as his grand dam, and the stallions dams sire is brown and the dam is bay..But the stallion who my mare is in foal to has produced chestnut foals to chestnut mares..


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

So that means he's heterozygous for black.

So, your possibilities are chestnut, black and brown.
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## Georgia12 (Dec 20, 2014)

Is a liver chestnut possible?


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

The really nice thing about chestnuts when it comes to foal color predictions, you know they can only pass red 

If the stallion is heterozygous black, you have a 50% chance of a chestnut foal, 50% chance of a black based foal (black/brown/bay)

If the mare or stallion is homozygous agouti, you cannot get a black foal, only brown or bay if the black gene was also passed. 

I put the bay agouti in there as an option because the chestnut mare can carry it as agouti has no visual effect on red based horses. 

You can figure out some about color genetics based on a horse's progeny. If the brown stallion has any chestnut foals, he is heterozygous black. If the stallion has any black foals, he is heterozygous agouti. If the chestnut mare has had foals, you can get an idea of her agouti status if she was ever bred to a black stallion and produced a black based foal. If she had a black foal, she has at least one non-agouti. If she produced a bay or brown from a black stallion, she has at least one agouti.


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## Georgia12 (Dec 20, 2014)

My mare had been bred to a grey stallion n produced a grey foal,


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Georgia12 said:


> My mare had been bred to a grey stallion n produced a grey foal,


The grey came from the stallion. Grey is what's called a "simple dominant." This means there only needs to be one copy of the gene present in order for it to express. So, when a "regular" color horse is bred to a grey, there is a 50% chance of the foal being grey. Without one of the parents being grey, there is no chance of the foal being grey, even if there are greys back in the pedigree behind the sire and dam.

Sunny, what is the dominance of bay versus brown? I would assume one is dominant over the other?
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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Georgia12 said:


> My mare had been bred to a grey stallion n produced a grey foal,


Grey came from the foal's sire. Your options are 50% chestnut and the other 50% of the possibilities is divided between black, brown and bay depending on agouti status of the brown stallion and chestnut mare

As far as liver chestnut goes, you have 50% chance of chestnut and there is no way to predict the shade of chestnut you would get.


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

DraftyAiresMum said:


> The grey came from the stallion. Grey is what's called a "simple dominant." This means there only needs to be one copy of the gene present in order for it to express. So, when a "regular" color horse is bred to a grey, there is a 50% chance of the foal being grey. Without one of the parents being grey, there is no chance of the foal being grey, even if there are greys back in the pedigree behind the sire and dam.
> 
> Sunny, what is the dominance of bay versus brown? I would assume one is dominant over the other?
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


I believe the theory is that bay is dominant over brown. There was a member who color tested the agouti in their bay horse as one year he suddenly had the classic light soft spots in his winter coat but only happened that one winter. Agouti test came back that the horse had both a bay agouti and a brown agouti. Was a long time ago so I don't want to dig for the actual thread :lol:


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Interesting! That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure.
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## FrostedLilly (Nov 4, 2012)

Yeah from what I remember, I think it goes A is dominant over At is dominant over A+.... but I might be remembering that wrong.


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