# What color?



## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

Looking closer it looks like that may be the same foal...? How could he start as a bay and shed out to a blue roan? 

But it's evident he did, because on his muzzle there is some brown hair and on the edges of his ears...

So confusing!


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

If that is the same foal (they look very similar in build and looks), then he's likely brown roan. Some brown roans can look like bay roans, others can look like blue roans with brown muzzles.

Here's a brown roan that looks like the latter:









and another:


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

Do they usually roan like that?


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

It can happen. That's why the foal/first shed is the most fun, because you could end up with an almost completely different colored horse from what they were born as. :lol: 

Look at this foal...looks to have been born looking bay, but shedding out blue/brown roan:


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

Wow.. that's crazy! Don't you just love horse genetics? I'm always learning something new! 

Can any color be a roan? I mean, almost everyone knows about the red roan and blue roan, but only just recently have I seen grulla roan, brown roan, and bay roan. I assume all but paints and appys can be roans. Am I wrong?


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

Depending on who mommy is, the foal could still be grey as there is a grey in both pictures. Could be brown roan now but will grey out when the grey gene takes over, but that is only if the grey in the pictures is the dam. Need at least one grey parent for grey to be a possibility ;-)


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

timonlionking said:


> Wow.. that's crazy! Don't you just love horse genetics? I'm always learning something new!
> 
> Can any color be a roan? I mean, almost everyone knows about the red roan and blue roan, but only just recently have I seen grulla roan, brown roan, and bay roan. I assume all but paints and appys can be roans. Am I wrong?


Even paints and appys can be roans. Appys even have their own type of roan called varnish.

The horse in the second pic I posted is a paint (technically pinto since we don't know if s/he is registered APHA or not).
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

timonlionking said:


> Wow.. that's crazy! Don't you just love horse genetics? I'm always learning something new!
> 
> Can any color be a roan? I mean, almost everyone knows about the red roan and blue roan, but only just recently have I seen grulla roan, brown roan, and bay roan. I assume all but paints and appys can be roans. Am I wrong?


Yes
Roan is not a color gene, but a color modifying gene ,, that can work on any base color, interspersing colored hair with white hair


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

far as the Appaloosa roan, it is really not a roan gene, but associated with the LP complex, and in fact, all Appaloosas are varnish roans, with the number of copies they have, determining a coat pattern

'All of the individual genes within the leopard complex are not understood, but due to the efforts of the Appaloosa Project we are beginning to understand a few. For example, we know that all appaloosa patterns can be turned off together. This key gene to appaloosa expression is referred to as "LP" for "leopard complex" and will, by itself, result in a varnish roan pattern. Two more genes, called PATN1 and PATN2 are responsible for the popular leopard and blanket spotting patterns. Without varnish roan, neither of these spotting patterns will show up, and with two varnish roan alleles, they will display as solid white without the characteristic spots.'


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## ShirtHotTeez (Sep 23, 2014)

Smilie said:


> far as the Appaloosa roan, it is really not a roan gene, but associated with the LP complex, and in fact, all Appaloosas are varnish roans, with the number of copies they have, determining a coat pattern
> 
> 'All of the individual genes within the leopard complex are not understood, but due to the efforts of the Appaloosa Project we are beginning to understand a few. For example, we know that all appaloosa patterns can be turned off together. This key gene to appaloosa expression is referred to as "LP" for "leopard complex" and will, by itself, result in a varnish roan pattern. Two more genes, called PATN1 and PATN2 are responsible for the popular leopard and blanket spotting patterns. Without varnish roan, neither of these spotting patterns will show up, and with two varnish roan alleles, they will display as solid white without the characteristic spots.'


Do you have a book on this? Or could you write one to explain in plain English! I really interest me but I struggle to grasp it sometimes. I think I've got a handle on this bit but sometimes it is bamboozling!!

So if the PATN1 or PATN2 are present but not LP you will have a solid colour horse, but that horse could throw the spots if crossed with a mate with the LP and PATN gene? Or am I way off track?


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

DraftyAiresMum said:


> Even paints and appys can be roans. Appys even have their own type of roan called varnish.
> 
> The horse in the second pic I posted is a paint (technically pinto since we don't know if s/he is registered APHA or not).
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Oh! I didn't even notice that. I feel so dumb on all of this color stuff.


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

I always like to think of it like paint.

The basic colors (chestnut, black, bay, brown) are the primary colors (red, blue, yellow). Anything else modifies those basic colors in the same way that mixing colors modifies the primary colors. Adding one cream is like adding a little bit of white mixed into the base paint to lighten the color. Two creams is like adding a lot of white to almost completely dilute the base paint. The pinto genes are like painting a wall the base color, then painting patches of the wall white in a prescribed manner. Roan is like painting the wall a base color, then stippling white on it so that the base color and white are fairly-evenly mixed.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The hard part is just remembering what gene does what to the base color and learning to identify what's going on with a particular wall...er, I mean...horse. :lol: ;-) It just takes practice.


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

DraftyAiresMum said:


> I always like to think of it like paint.
> 
> The basic colors (chestnut, black, bay, brown) are the primary colors (red, blue, yellow). Anything else modifies those basic colors in the same way that mixing colors modifies the primary colors. Adding one cream is like adding a little bit of white mixed into the base paint to lighten the color. Two creams is like adding a lot of white to almost completely dilute the base paint. The pinto genes are like painting a wall the base color, then painting patches of the wall white in a prescribed manner. Roan is like painting the wall a base color, then stippling white on it so that the base color and white are fairly-evenly mixed.
> 
> I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The hard part is just remembering what gene does what to the base color and learning to identify what's going on with a particular wall...er, I mean...horse. :lol: ;-) It just takes practice.


That's a really helpful analogy! Thanks for sharing that. So if you add two cream genes to a base coat of say black, what would that be classified as?


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Smokey cream is what black with two creams is called.

smoky cream horses
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

So what about the dun gene. Two copies of that? Does it just make a homozygous dun and all of their babies will be dun?


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

Yep. Two dun genes doesn't change the look of the dun expression, it just means that any progeny are guaranteed to be dun.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

The reason why there are different colors between a horse with 1 cream dilution and 2 cream dilutions is because cream is an incomplete dominant. It is a dominant which means it will show on all horse coats with 1 copy of cream (other than black as they may or may not fade in the sun worse than the blacks with no cream, this is also why buckskins still have black legs and such because cream works on the entire body). 2 copies of cream will dilute out black pigment, turn the skin pink and the eyes a ghostly light blue, every time without fail. 

Champaign is another dilute modifier that gets really interesting and really makes it hard to identify a horse's color as it has a huge variety of names depending on what else is going on with the horse's color. You need to pull hairs and get them tested much of the time to properly identify a champaign horse's coat color name as a bay based champaign can look a lot like a black based champaign or a chestnut based champaign... And then if you add any other dilution modifiers like cream or dun, good luck figuring out all the genetics without pulling hairs and testing


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

SunnyDraco said:


> The reason why there are different colors between a horse with 1 cream dilution and 2 cream dilutions is because cream is an incomplete dominant. It is a dominant which means it will show on all horse coats with 1 copy of cream (other than black as they may or may not fade in the sun worse than the blacks with no cream, this is also why buckskins still have black legs and such because cream works on the entire body). 2 copies of cream will dilute out black pigment, turn the skin pink and the eyes a ghostly light blue, every time without fail.
> 
> Champaign is another dilute modifier that gets really interesting and really makes it hard to identify a horse's color as it has a huge variety of names depending on what else is going on with the horse's color. You need to pull hairs and get them tested much of the time to properly identify a champaign horse's coat color name as a bay based champaign can look a lot like a black based champaign or a chestnut based champaign... And then if you add any other dilution modifiers like cream or dun, good luck figuring out all the genetics without pulling hairs and testing



I'm definitely not good with cream and coats associated with it! All of our horses are either dun or black! We have one paint mare, and I'm not good with them, either.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

Another question. My mini was sold to me as black, but she fades REALLY bad in the summer where she looks like a dark bay color. I thought maybe she was a bay but could she have a cream gene in there somewhere that's causing her to fade like that? I mean I know the only way to tell is to color test, but is it a possibility?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

It's possible she's smokey black, which is black + one cream. Smokey blacks usually present as really badly fading blacks. Or, she could just be a really badly fading regular black (no cream or other modifiers). 

Do you know her pedigree or what color her parents are?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Dehda01 (Jul 25, 2013)

It is possible if she is a smokey black, though black can just fade that way. Do you know what color her parents were? DNA testing would be your easiest answer.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

No, I don't. That's what makes it so hard to tell! I got her for my 14th birthday. She's unregistered. When I got her, I was originally gonna get a palomino mini that I'm not sure is related to her, and as soon as I saw her, I knew she's the one I wanted. But yeah. She might be related to her. She had the pally and Star and a couple more blacks there. I wasn't really paying attention to what wasn't for sale, ya know?


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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

No, I hear ya.

Do you have pics of her?


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

I'm on my phone so only one will upload at a time, sorry! 

But this is a couple weeks ago, ignore the messy lot. Working on getting her into a pasture but don't wanna put her in with the big horses.


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)




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## DraftyAiresMum (Jun 1, 2011)

It's possible she's smokey black.


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

It would explain her fading! She might just fade bad, who knows? It's not like it's a big deal if she is, I'm not planning on breeding her, it's just a curiosity thing. Which is why I don't want to pay $85 or so dollars on a color test!


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## SunnyDraco (Dec 8, 2011)

timonlionking said:


> It would explain her fading! She might just fade bad, who knows? It's not like it's a big deal if she is, I'm not planning on breeding her, it's just a curiosity thing. Which is why I don't want to pay $85 or so dollars on a color test!


If you are only testing for cream, I think it is only $25 ;-)


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## timonlionking (Sep 28, 2015)

SunnyDraco said:


> If you are only testing for cream, I think it is only $25 ;-)


Oh! I didn't know that. I'll have to look into it! I could probably justify spending $25 better than $85!


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