Anyone want to know about greys and roans...?

Chev

I can't remember what breed gelfy is - that colouring seems to be quite simialr to our Eriskay mare, and I'm curious how light she'll go. She was apparently bay at birth and is now a kind of rosie dappled grey ;)

Her sire was black (an Eriskay called Kestrel) and I think her dam was grey ( as in white ;) ).

She only arrived in Dec tho we do have some photos from Sept - its going to be interesting to see what her summer coat and colour is :D

This is her the day she arrived
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Another question for you Chev- once a grey gets to the 'fleabitten' stage, do they go on getting more and more 'fleabites' every year, or do they reach a point and stop?

Dolly is VERY fleabitten already- lots of pale pinky chestnut bits, and I was wondering if she'll end up looking like the pink spotted pony of my childhood dreams?;)

Also, she has very dark markings on the backs of her hocks- looks like she has rolled that bit in oil- what's that about? Is it just the last of her 'dappling'? I believe she was strikingly dappled in her younger years:)

Great threads these colour ones BTW- thankyou for all your hard work:)
 
Jaimee - there's a couple of possibilities there. In the second pic she looks like a classic roan with some appaloosa pattern (the spotty skin would suggest that). Although you say she never changed colour, there's a lot mroe roaning on the second pic than on the first. If that was a seasonal change then that too would suggest classic roan. If however she did get more roaned as she got older, then the pattern is failry typical of varnish roan (unusual to see so little roaning on the head with varnish roan though).

The other possibility is rabicano. Rabicano causes 'skunk' tail - where there's white striping and roaning on the dock and the quarters - the first pic is quite typical of that. The white tail, heavily roaned quarters and darker shoulder and head is very rabicano.

Without knowing her breeding or being able to see pics of her as a foal and yearling it's almost impossible to say for sure.

cvb - Gelfy is I'm afraid an unknown as far as breeding goes. In some ways he looks sec C ish, maybe crossed with short cobby type or something, but to be honest, he could have anything in there (and probably does!). Your Eriskay will eventually go white - as do all greys who live long enough! It's difficult to say how quickly she'll grey out - some ponies are white by the age of four (as May was) while others seem to retain a fair bit of pigment into their teens. Gelfy is getting whiter very quickly now - I think by his early teens he will be pretty much white all over. What you'll find is that she'll get paler each time she sheds out her coat; so each winter and summer coat will be progressively whiter each year.

HC - That's another odd one - fleabitten markings do vary quite a lot. Some horses get none at all - some get so many they look almost roaned from a distance. It's not uncommon to see what's called 'bloody shoulders' on Arabs - kind of like freckles that are so concentrated they look like roan patches.

It seems that in some greys, the process by which pigment is no longer produced in the hair follicle is reversed to an extent; she won't get spotty as such, or end up solid coloured again, but most horses that do develop freckles develop a lot of them if they live long enough.
 
And the dappling! Forgot that bit :D Greys hold onto pigment on their legs and in mane and tail longer than anywhere else. The dark bits on her hocks are basically what's left of whatever colour she was originally. Some horses end up with dark knees and hocks long after the rest of them is completely white; it sounds like Dolly is one of those :)
 
Chev, QH can also get bloody marks. A mare I know is starting to get one, the guy said each year that spot gets a bit bigger and denser.

A question about grays: What decides their mane and tail color? My mare has a gray and white mane with a white tail. And does anything dictate their face markings? She's a flea-bitten with a star, strip, and snip.

Here's three pictures that really add nothing to the discussion:

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EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see this was an old topic.
 
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Don't worry - just because it's been up a while doesn't mean new input isn't welcome! :D

Nice pics - that's a lot of fleabites!

Usually a grey will retain colour in the mane and tail longer if it was born with black points (so black or bay based, with no dilute genes that would affect point colour) and those are the greys you see with dark points, Chestnut based horses will usually end up with white mane and tail faster - but all greys do eventually end up with white or near-white mane and tail hair.

Markings are caused by environmental factors (in utero) and genetics separate from grey - sabino and splash are the two most common causes of white markings on horses. They are quite characteristic markings though - markings like those your mare has are thought to be either random developmental markings or very minimal expressions of that type of gene.
 
grey roan?

i have had my horse since she was 3. a couple of years down the line, she went from hairy dark grey with white feature, to being almost white, but with grey colourings. i love her colours, but just want to know if she was suppose 2 b this colour? her papers say she is grey, but she is really roan grey with hints of dark. il post a pic soon.:confused:
 
Thanks Chev for your colour threads. I now know that since I want to breed horses in the dark range, I should not consider the grey mare:)

(although a grey friesain looking friesian warmblood would be interesting:) )
 
Complete genetic novice!

Hi there,
This is my very first posting so excuse any strange happenings.....

I found your thread very interesting. I have a mare in foal. She is a rose grey, I believe, being a sort of dapple grey and having sort of brown hairs intermingled. She has been covered by a black welsh section D stallion. Any idea what sort of foal colouring I might expect...I know nothing on this subject (as you may have guessed) so any straight forward information would be very welcome, thank you...
 
Chev will be better help, but if she's got brown hairs (not chestnut?) she'll likely be a bay or brown under the grey. That's my guess! ;)

My mare has what looks like chestnut flea-bites, and she's being covered by a cremello stallion (for those that vaguely remember, I put in foal two years ago, but the foal slipped, and I waited a season to being her back into better timing for foaling)... so my chances are grey, palomino, buckskin. I have looked at her pedigee, but as it's all 50% grey across both lines, I have no clue what her base coat is!!
 
shazzel; base colour of your foal will depend on what colour tha mare is *under* the grey, and whether the stallion is homozygous for black (that is, whether he has two black genes or one black and one red). You've probably got a chance of bay and black, and maybe chestnut.

There's a 50% chance that the foal will go grey if your mare has one copy of grey. If she has two, however, the foal will definitely go grey. :)
 
One grey parent means she'll only have one copy of grey - so there's a 50/50 chance of her foal being grey :)

Difficult to say whether or not she has the cream dilute under the grey; is she registered, and if so, what colour does it say on her papers? Any idea what colour she was born?

Black foals from bay mares just means that the bay mares he covered didn't have two copies of bay! You need to know if he's ever thrown a chestnut - that would tell you if he carries a copy of red. If one of his parents was chestnut then we'd know for sure he had one red gene, but other than that, it's really guesswork without DNA testing.

With your mare's sire being palomino there is a small chance also that she does carry cream - you can actually have her tested for the cream gene if you were really interested. :)
 
Here's a blue/grey roan, depending on what you call it. A yearling anyway.



casper-2006-waas.jpg
 
wally, is he yours????? he's lush! Chev, is the brown in the mane due to parentage and will this change? presume the pony will go 'white' at some point...??

I think my horse was a blue piebald.. the black bits were very light and the skin is pigmented. When wet he has pink (as I call them 'pig' marks!!!!) marks on his body where the coat was white white. Is now fleabitten

LCQH - what a lovely colour.. .ie. fleabitten! very interesting when it's so dark and pronounced. Almost a new colour!

Oh and a quick aside... i said to an inexperienced woman at the stables somthing about his 'fleabites' and she said 'oh my god, how did fleas get at him, is it serious??? I then realised that maybe it's not a usual term but did make me smile. Felt bad telling her what it actually meant!!!!
 
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Since having Blue I now know why so many greys (whites) are called Blue:D
This is her when I bought her
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"Ride and Drive missus but whatever you do don't get on her back!"--couldn't have been old enough to have a bit in her mouth?

and this is her now

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She's gone paler every year and I still miss that Blue/black colour but it would be nice if she turned flea-bitten grey like Sarah-lee
Is a flea-bitten grey that colour from very young or do they go through the gradual change everytime?
 
Mine won't go white, he's a roan so won't grey out, Froggy in the pic in my signature was a blue piebald when we got him, in 2 years he has greyed out considerably.

BTW the brown in the mane is through sun and wind bleaching it.
 
Here's his dad, his mum was black.
 

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Can I have your help with Millie's colouring Chev.

Her dad seems to be a true black with a white blaze and I think possibly white marking on a leg or two. Her mum was apparently a true grey.

Millie was this colour at 1 and three months on looks a fraction darker, would she be considered roan? Is there a chance she will go grey or black? Her mane is dark but has almost red highlights in it same with her tail. In addition the grey markings on her legs seem to have crept slightly higher up her leg still under hock and knee but seem a little more defined against the rest of her coat.

What do you think?
 
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