# Fleabitten horses



## LoveDressage

Hello everyone!!
Here comes my story: my horse was born a buckskin and when at 4 years old he began to change his coat, he started graying out on his front legs first and then his back legs. (I'll add some photos in the end so you can see the differences) Then his golden color began to fade more and more to the point he's now completly grey (he's 9 now and will be 10 in 3 months), and around 8 he started the graying out process on his mane, he's now getting grey small pieces of tail and mane! And this year I started to see some fleabitten spots on his neck on a very light brown. 
So here comes my questions! I know fleabitten horses tend to get more and more fleabitten spots as they get older, but I've also read that some of them may eventually turn ''white'' (not actually white but you know what i mean) like all normal greys. Is this true?
I also read somewhere that fleabitten horses are less likely to develop melanomas compared to normal greys because all fleabitten horses were once another color..?
Do you think he will eventually become a fleabitten?
So here are some photos of my boy!
When he was born:








As 3/4 years old:








As a 7 years old:








Comparing him as 3/4 years old to him as 8 yo:








As a 9 years old:








Some of the fleabitten dots that started to appear:


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## trailhorserider

I think ALL grey horses were born a regular color. What you may be getting confused on is that I *think* fleabit greys are usually heterozygous for gray and therefore may not get melanomas we frequently as a homozygous greys. But I don't even know if that's true for sure. 

Other than that, I can't answer those questions. But as an owner of two greys myself, I look forward to seeing what others have to say because I would like to know as well. 

I know my mare is heterozygous for grey because she only has one grey parent. And my gelding (her foal) the same way.....only one grey parent. My mare is fleabit (and shows some faint traces of dapples). I am hoping her foal will dapple out. He's 5 now and showing some hints of dapples, but gosh, he's taking his time!

Your horse is beautiful! I LOVE the photo with the flowers braided in his mane. Those things you circled.....have they always been there? Because I think those might just be spots that didn't grey out along with the rest of his coat. Like bloody shoulder markings. Unless they didn't exist before.....that would be interesting.

My mare has a black spot on her forehead. She's had it the entire time I've owned her, which has only been about 6 years so I didn't see her grey out (she's over 20 now). But I assume the spot has always been there and it's an area that didn't grey out. But I don't know for sure.

Here's a photo. Please excuse the muddy horse. It's the only photo I could find that showed the spot. Most of time her forelock covers it.


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## HombresArablegacy

From my experience with grey Arabians, those that have the rose grey coloring in their earlier years (bay highlights) tend to become flea bitten greys, and those whose coat is dappled,silver/black with black mane and tail tend to go grey (or white, if you prefer) as they age. Your horse appears to be the latter, a dapple grey, and turning white eventually. Flea bitten greys look like they have little brown specks throughout their body. 

I'm attaching a link to pictures of flea bitten greys so you can see the difference.

https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+if+flea+bitten+grey+horse&oq=picture+if+flea+bitten+grey+horse&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i33.20224j1j4&client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgdii=_
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## WhattaTroublemaker

It looks like he's dappleing, as opposed to speckling.


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## DraftyAiresMum

Regarding the melanomas question...

My best friend's 17yo heavily-fleabitten grey TB gelding (who was dapple grey when she got him as a 5yo) has melanomas. He's had them twice, now.

Smrobs, a member here, has a grey mustang who is neither fleabitten nor dapple, and he has had to have melanomas surgically removed.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SunnyDraco

Your lovely grey has more of a scattering of freckles as compared to being truly flea bitten. The thing about flea bitten greys is that the spots of color come as the horse's genetic base color (buckskin in the case of your grey). The fleabitten greys I personally know were heavily fleabitten by the time they were 8 years old and those fleabites never turned white, even when they passed 20 years of age. Your boy won't be heavily fleabitten and will be as snowy white as heterozygous greys can get if given enough time ;-)
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## phantomhorse13

Our fleabitten grey seems to be getting more fleabitten as he ages.

2011 (age 12):











2015 (age 16):


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## Cherie

We have about 25 gray horses right now. In my lifetime, I have had more than a dozen gray stallions. More than half of our mares are grays, about 15 of them. They were all born a different color. All of the ones that trace to Classical Silver will get flea bitten. We had a stallion, born gurllo / dun named War Chiefs Pride (barn name 'Drifter'). None of his get are flea bitten and all eventually turn snow white. We then bred several Classical Silver daughters to Drifter and some turned white while others have gotten flea bitten. I bred 2 Classical Silver daughters to a flea bitten gray son of Peppy San Badger and those foals got even more flea bitten speckles than any of the others -- pretty much like a double dose of speckles.

I know UC Davis has only identified one gray gene (dominant), but I contend from 50 years of breeding gray horses that there are two distinct variations of that gene. In all of those years, I have not had a single white horse produced by a flea bitten horse and visa versa unless that horse had a parent of each type. That cannot be a coincidence. I have probably had close to 500 gray horses that I have bred and raised and if this was not a genetic rule, one white horse would have produced a flea bitten one or visa versa in all of those foal crops. All of the flea bitten ones have come from horses with a bay, brown or black base color. Almost all of the snow white ones have been born with a buckskin, dun, grullo or sorrel base color. In all of these years, I have had I true homozygous (sired 100% grays) and he had two gray parents and was born 'silver' colored. He had black skin, dark eyes, but was snow white the day he was foaled. I sold him without sending hair to Davis. [I wish I had.]

We have had so few horses ever come up with melanomas over the years that I cannot say which would be more prone to them. I have one horse with a couple of small ones now, he is snow white but I did not raise him. Almost every gray horse I have had with melanomas, like him, has been purchased.


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## Bedhead

My gelding is flea bitten, and from the looks of it, yours in not. He clearly has dapples in some of his photos, and to the best of my knowledge horses that dapple don't have flea bites. He might have chunks where he didn't grey out, but that's not the same thing. Flea bites are _all_ over the horse's body. Some more pronounced than others. My geldings' are very small, but visible in the photo I've attached. This is around 2013-ish. The other photo is of him roughly around five, where you can more or less see that he's a rose grey as a wee bab. He's admittedly probably not the best example as he looks completely white in photos most of the time, but you can see the speckling in the photo (if you look hard enough...).

There's a flea bitten gelding at my barn who has a quarter sized spot on his butt, for example, where he didn't grey out. Your horse has dapples and to the best of my knowedge horses that dapple typically don't have flea bites. If your gelding hasn't gotten them by now he probably never will.

I have not noticed my gelding have more or less flea bites as he ages, however as he's also a silver grey (black mane/tail, much like yours), his mane and tail (moreso his mane) have become lighter as he ages. His tail is almost completely white except for a black/dark grey streak at the top of it.

Rush does have a melanoma bump on his crest, which as long as it doesn't bother him we will leave it alone. Another fleabitten mare at the barn has bumps ALL over the underside of her tail and around her lady bits; Same verdict from the vet- if it's not bothering her, just leave her alone.

ALL greys, fleabitten or not, start out as another color. That's where the term came from; they "grey" out over time. If a horse has black skin and white hair, it's a grey. If it has pink skin, it's white hair (markings, etc.).

My grey horse (born a bay) has 4 white socks. You know this because when you bathe him, you can clearly see the outline on the lower parts of his legs where the black skin ends and the pink skin begins.

On the topic of greys being other colors; If it has black skin, it's grey, therefor was born another color. If it's got pink skin it's a white horse, but short of an albino or the lethal white gene I can't think of anything else that does that. Or the skin under a marking (face, leg, paint, etc.) is pink, etc.,

Your horse is absolutely stunning, by the way. I'm so jealous.

Edit; added a photo that better showed the flea bites (at least on his face/neck/chest). Disclaimer; This was taken at a show as I was grooming him so yes he was tied short, but he was at the end of his line so it's not as short as the photo suggests. I'm not a jerk who ties their noses literally to the wall


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## HombresArablegacy

Pictures of my mare, Exquisitely Moniet as a weanling and currently almost 10. 
She was born a bay with white star and soon turned rose grey in a few months. Her sire was a flea bit grey, dam is bay. What is interesting to me is that every foal of Hombres linel, all were born with a star on the forehead and no other white. This is with bays, chestnut, and grey. Her sire was fleabit, her dam is bay.
http://www.horseforum.com/horses/photos/094e2d56d2e732857fd4539179d3f284_thumb.jpg

Ok doing this in advanced mode and can only see the url of one picture I copied. Not sure which one it is.


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## HombresArablegacy

HombresArablegacy said:


> Pictures of my mare, Exquisitely Moniet as a weanling and currently almost 10.
> She was born a bay with white star and soon turned rose grey in a few months. Her sire was a flea bit grey, dam is bay. What is interesting to me is that every foal of Hombres linel, all were born with a star on the forehead and no other white. This is with bays, chestnut, and grey. Her sire was fleabit, her dam is bay.
> http://www.horseforum.com/horses/photos/094e2d56d2e732857fd4539179d3f284_thumb.jpg
> 
> Ok doing this in advanced mode and can only see the url of one picture I copied. Not sure which one it is.


http://www.horseforum.com/horses/photos/98ffacddc3154ff6899a9c024882eea1_full.jpg


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## LoveDressage

Thank you so much for all your replies!!
But I truly believe that he's turning fleabitten, I know that he doesn't look like those fleabitten horses you posted because he has very few ''spots'', but the flea bites he has have been appearing for a year now, before he used to have those dapples you saw in one of the photos. As I'm talking about those brown spots on his neck not the darker ones because that's what's left of his previous color and dapples. They have been appearing for a year, he did not have them before 
I took some pictures of his neck today, tell me what do you think! Fleabitten or just grey? (you can click on the photos to zoom them a little)


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## LoveDressage

trailhorserider said:


> Those things you circled.....have they always been there? Because I think those might just be spots that didn't grey out along with the rest of his coat. Like bloody shoulder markings. Unless they didn't exist before.....that would be interesting.


Thank you so much!! Your mare is so sweet and beautiful too!! 
And no they didn't exist before, check my last reply on this post, I added some photos of his neck today as you couldn't really see the spots I circled on the first post!


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## phantomhorse13

Those close up photos look a lot like another grey gelding we have, who is actually a 3/4 sibling to the one I pictured. He is a lot more "white" but has also been developing flea bites with age. However, the marks are bigger in size than what I think of as a normal fleabite. [I couldn't get pics because he is so totally filthy that he would be mistaken for brown currently - yay rain and mud.]

I always wondered if it was just a different form of fleabitten or some other version of them. So much about genetics we still don't know.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs

All I can say is the flea bites seem to get darker and more numerous as they age.

Ghost at 28-ish?










Cowboy at 10...










When we got each of them, the flea bites were either non existent or very few and light and are becoming more numerous and darker over the years....


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## trailhorserider

I didn't think dapples and flea bites were mutually exclusive?

When I got my mare she was 15. She was 16 in this photo. She has flea bites but she also had some dark coloring on her haunches and legs that look like she used to have dapples. I assume she was dapple grey in her younger years. It seems like I have seen some other horses with a combination of both, but off-hand I don't know where. Sadly, she has pretty much lost what was left of her dapples. I don't know if she's gained flea bites or not. I haven't really noticed an increase, but then again, everything happens so gradual it's hard to tell. 

I'm hoping my 5 yr old gelding (son of my mare) will go through a dappled phase. It looks like he's trying to.


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## trailhorserider

A more current photo of my mare. Definitely less dappling, but I don't think the flea bites have increased either? 

What's kind of cool, which I never noticed before, as some of her larger flea bites are exactly in the same location. So they haven't changed over the past 5 or 6 years. It's almost like you could identify her by the constellation pattern of the larger flea bites. :lol: I had no idea flea bites were permanent in their size and location. Notice the larger ones on her barrel.......the same 5-6 years later. That goes against everything I thought I knew about flea bites.

I wish my mares flea bites got more numerous......I think that would be pretty!


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## trailhorserider

Cherie said:


> We have about 25 gray horses right now. In my lifetime, I have had more than a dozen gray stallions. More than half of our mares are grays, about 15 of them. They were all born a different color. All of the ones that trace to Classical Silver will get flea bitten. We had a stallion, born gurllo / dun named War Chiefs Pride (barn name 'Drifter'). None of his get are flea bitten and all eventually turn snow white. We then bred several Classical Silver daughters to Drifter and some turned white while others have gotten flea bitten. I bred 2 Classical Silver daughters to a flea bitten gray son of Peppy San Badger and those foals got even more flea bitten speckles than any of the others -- pretty much like a double dose of speckles.
> 
> I know UC Davis has only identified one gray gene (dominant), but I contend from 50 years of breeding gray horses that there are two distinct variations of that gene. In all of those years, I have not had a single white horse produced by a flea bitten horse and visa versa unless that horse had a parent of each type. That cannot be a coincidence. I have probably had close to 500 gray horses that I have bred and raised and if this was not a genetic rule, one white horse would have produced a flea bitten one or visa versa in all of those foal crops. All of the flea bitten ones have come from horses with a bay, brown or black base color. Almost all of the snow white ones have been born with a buckskin, dun, grullo or sorrel base color. In all of these years, I have had I true homozygous (sired 100% grays) and he had two gray parents and was born 'silver' colored. He had black skin, dark eyes, but was snow white the day he was foaled. I sold him without sending hair to Davis. [I wish I had.]
> 
> We have had so few horses ever come up with melanomas over the years that I cannot say which would be more prone to them. I have one horse with a couple of small ones now, he is snow white but I did not raise him. Almost every gray horse I have had with melanomas, like him, has been purchased.


Wow Cherie, you've had such a large "sampling" of grey horses, you could probably write research papers on your experiences with the gene. That's really awesome!

Any observations on which ones will dapple? I don't think there is anything much prettier than a dapple gray.


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## Cherie

The horses born with a very dark base color like dark bay, brown or black usually hold their color longer and usually dapple more. The horses born sorrel, buckskin, palomino or dun gray out the fastest. The hoses that are still very dark at 2 and 3 years of age will sometime hold their dapples and a lot of their color for several more years. They are also the ones that seem to get speckles. 

I sold a mare last summer that I had ridden as my personal horse for many years. She was one of the horses sired by the Peppy San Badger horse I mentioned. She was born black but carried a red gene (I had her tested). Both her sire and dam were flea bitten grays. She grayed out quite quickly for one born black. Then, she started to get the speckles. Though her base color was black, she got dark red speckles -- I'm guessing from her red gene. When I sold her last summer, she had more flea bitten speckles than almost any other horse I have raised. From a distance, she looked like a dark gray horse just turning color.

Her new owner in California has also said she has never seen another horse with so many speckles.


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## SunnyDraco

Cherie said:


> The horses born with a very dark base color like dark bay, brown or black usually hold their color longer and usually dapple more. The horses born sorrel, buckskin, palomino or dun gray out the fastest. The hoses that are still very dark at 2 and 3 years of age will sometime hold their dapples and a lot of their color for several more years. They are also the ones that seem to get speckles.


Grey is so unpredictable and even the same grey gene passed down through generations doesn't behave the same. We had a heterozygous grey mare who was Ee/aa and bred her twice to a lovely black stallion who was also Ee/aa. The first foal was a filly and she was Ee/aa and had also received the grey gene from her dam. She stayed very black with minimal white hairs slowly progressing for the first three years, then within the next three years she went from a very black color with hints of the greying process to a very light grey, four years later she was done with the grey process at the age of ten. Her own dam was still a medium shade of dapple grey at ten years old (never finished greying out due to a lightning strike). The dam had also produced a full sibling to the black filly who went from a very slow greying process to a very quick process, he was born a lovely medium chestnut color (the 25% chance of red when crossing heterozygous blacks) and almost immediately turned to a light rose grey color which didn't change for a long time, he finally finished greying out at 15 years old and now has a loss of skin pigment in his old age. His sister produced two foals by two different non grey sires, both foals came out grey. The first was a filly who was born black and progressed through the grey stages at a steady medium pace (not as slow as her granddam and not slow/fast like her dam) but was already a nice dapple grey by the time she turned 4 years old and didn't finish greying out until her late teen years. The second foal was a colt who was born chestnut (another 25% chance of red when crossing heterozygous blacks as his sire was a bay) and he turned a dark grey from his red coat before getting lighter, including going through a dapple phase and was a nice light dapple grey when he was 10 years old. None of these greys were fleabitten, and all originated the grey gene from one particular mare and progressed very differently and didn't seem to make much difference if they were born black or chestnut. 

The heavily fleabitten mares I know came from a heavily fleabitten parent. The heterozyous grey mare owned and bred by my sister is chesnut based and her dam was a bright white homozygous grey chestnut based while her sire was a heavily fleabitten heterozygous grey. And the fleabites grow with age, as with this mare she was developing fleabites at the same time she was still losing color so it appeared she was getting darker with red fleabites at the same time her light grey hairs were getting replaced with white hairs.


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## Regula

I believe the current understandung us that fleabites may be passed on genetically separate from gray, but that they are only visible on grays (cause all other colors they will be the same as the base color).
They don't seem to be mutually exclusive with dapples, and it is not uncommon for a horse to go completely white and then develop fleabites with time.

I was a bit sceptical when I saw the first set of photos too, but in the second set he does look like he is developing fleabites.

Love the mane job with the flowers!!  Want to post a tutorial on that sometime when you have time?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## stevenson

my TB that was flea bit, and arab that was also flea bit also called a rose grey, both had Huge and multiple melanomas.


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## rebeccahorse

My grey mare had two dark foals one bay, one black, and by two they were both really light. The bay was completely silver by 6 months, and the other was silver at 2 yrs. The mare was 7 and still very dark with dapples. Amazing the different speeds they grey out.


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## Surayya

My mare's Dam was only 5 when she started to get fleabites on her face, she was still very much a dapple steel grey (Seal Brown base coat), the last time I saw her as a 10yr old, she was loaded with Brown fleabites- she certainly had less "white" hairs than fleabitten/coloured hairs at that stage.

My mare (foal of above mare), was also still dapple Grey when she started to get her fleabites at approx 5yrs old (although not as dappled as her dam), she is a Brown Roan & now at 10yrs, has loads of fleabites (I'd say her head, neck & shoulders are probably at least 60-70% fleabitten, although its darn near impossible to bring out all her roaned fleabites in a photo, they are super clear on her head obviously, but roan out drastically on her checks & all but the darkest brown ones simply blend in with her 'white' background, making her look an off white colour in photos- the joys of a fleabitten roan I guess  ), her quarters & barrel have fewer fleabites than the front of her, but they increase in number each year, she also developed a moderately sized repigmentation marking (think massive fleabite) on her barrel.
These are the best I can do to show she had both fleabites & dapples at the same time:
2013:
Winter-








2014:
Autumn-










My mare has just had a foal of her own (Seal Brown Roan Tobiano with Grey) & I'm excited to see how she will eventually Grey out- I'm hoping she'll get as heavily fleabiten as her dam & grand dam (or more so  ) so she'll have some contrast between her solid coloured areas & white markings for in the ring, but either way, it will be as interesting to watch her Grey out as it has been her dam


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## EliRose

Cherie said:


> The horses born with a very dark base color like dark bay, brown or black usually hold their color longer and usually dapple more. The horses born sorrel, buckskin, palomino or dun gray out the fastest. The hoses that are still very dark at 2 and 3 years of age will sometime hold their dapples and a lot of their color for several more years. They are also the ones that seem to get speckles.
> 
> I sold a mare last summer that I had ridden as my personal horse for many years. She was one of the horses sired by the Peppy San Badger horse I mentioned. She was born black but carried a red gene (I had her tested). Both her sire and dam were flea bitten grays. She grayed out quite quickly for one born black. Then, she started to get the speckles. Though her base color was black, she got dark red speckles -- I'm guessing from her red gene. When I sold her last summer, she had more flea bitten speckles than almost any other horse I have raised. From a distance, she looked like a dark gray horse just turning color.
> 
> Her new owner in California has also said she has never seen another horse with so many speckles.


Very interesting on the chestnuts going gray faster. One of my favorite horses, Hansen, is not homozygous for gray but went _white_ very quickly. His dam is brown and his sire is a chestnut-based gray, whose foals are notable for graying out early.

Hansen as a foal, including with his dam. Definitely red-based:
https://thevaulthorseracing.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/hansen-dam_.jpg?w=300&h=199
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/47/23/69/472369bc379be49e9f0e366430c107b3.jpg

At two:
http://fanfreakingtastic.com/wp-con...2eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ.jpeg

At three:
http://www.drf.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_main/photos/Hansen03.3-3-12.BL_.jpg

Hansen's foals have been graying markedly quickly, too.
HANSEN YEARLINGS: PROGENY OF A CHAMPION


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## Yogiwick

"If it's got pink skin it's a white horse, but short of an albino or the lethal white gene I can't think of anything else that does that." No albino's but there is a non lethal white though it is rare. Also some extreme dilutes may look white though technically aren't. Also some patterns (though you could count them as markings) can have a horse that is basically white.

I completely disagree with if he was fleabitten he would have fleabites by now. Horses will get lighter, to "white" then start getting darker again (flea bites) now obviously that is extremely general and depends on the individual but is a good guideline imo.

My gelding was pure white when we got him at 13. Over the years he got a few flea bites in his summer coat. Now 10 years later he is a regular "flea bitten grey" visible both summer and winter. Heck you can see the fleabites in my photoshopped avatar!! The OPs gelding (who is super handsome!) starting to get flea bites at 10 seems completely normal to me.


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