Color Genetics please help..

[GrannieD]

I looked at a black & white welsh halfbred..The dam appears to be liver chestnut & the sire is said to be a palomino & white half welsh pinto..I was questioning the possibility of Pal X Chestnut could produce a black & white foal..Would it be more likely if the mare is actually a smokey black.? She is the same color as a mare I've had that is liver chestnut.. Thanks for your input..GrannieD

[HoofPick]

Originally Posted by GrannieD

I looked at a black & white welsh halfbred..The dam appears to be liver chestnut & the sire is said to be a palomino & white half welsh pinto..I was questioning the possibility of Pal X Chestnut could produce a black & white foal..Would it be more likely if the mare is actually a smokey black.? She is the same color as a mare I've had that is liver chestnut.. Thanks for your input..GrannieD

A red based and red based cross can't produce a black based horse. Usually smokey blacks still appear black or like a sun bleached black. The dam could have been a brown, not liver chestnut. The pinto may actually be a very dark brown instead of black. Does the foal have lighter hair around the muzzle and flanks? Sometimes it is really hard to tell. Do you have pics?

[1sttimemom]

Sounds fishy, unless the colors are not what they appear. A silver dapple (silver bay, etc) can often look like a chestnut or sooty palomino. That color is rare in reg'd purebreds but welsh do come in silver.

Even a "brown" is really black based with a mealy gene. So even if the pony your looking at is 'brown" it shouldn't have come from chestnut & palomino parents as those are indeed red based colors. A super dark liver, or "black chestnut" can be extremely dark but is still genetically chestnut.

[akane]

Brown is not technically a color. Genetically it doesn't exist. Brown is what people say when they don't know what it is. It could be a bay with really poor markings that aren't seen, a chestnut of a certain shade, a black that is faded.... The chestnut could be a very faded black. I've seen near brown blacks and owned one. He'd shed black as anything spring and fall but look solid brown all summer and winter unless you knew what you were looking for. I also had a bay that would do near the same. Dark dark bay so you could hardly tell she wasn't black and then come summer she'd turn in to a dappled chestnut looking horse with just a bit of black up her legs as a clue.

Black

Start of fading

Nearly turned brown with just some leg markings and mane bleaching to go


Same horse I swear. They can go through some extremes.

[ShyAnne]

No way a chest nut and palomino( chestnut with cream) can produce black. However some palominos are actually silver bays, mistaken color identity....So IF one parent is a silver bay (black with silver and agouti) and one is a chestnut then YES a foal could be born black based. Pictures would really help!

[ShyAnne]

Classic silver bay that could be mistaken for a palomino...:
http://www.whinny4me.com/Sunny/Sunny...%20smaller.jpg

And a palomino:
http://www.theequinest.com/images/palomino-9.jpg

[GrannieD]

The colt is 9 months old & shows real black & white..His dam is chestnut with no sign of black on her legs ...I am amazed at the silver bay looking so much like a palomino in your pic...I wouldn't doubt that it'd be very easy for a pinto palomino to actually be a silver bay with no legs to show soot coloring..the silver bays I'm familiar with weren't that light ...Very interesting...! I can't send pics of the mare & colt...Appreciate your information.. GrannieD

[mountainwmn]

Particularly with ponies it is possible that the color they look isn't the color they are. But I remember reading in the APHA journal where seal brown is now a color. I guess its proven with DNA testing and many horses that were thought to be bay are actually brown.

[SFM in KY]

Originally Posted by akane

Brown is not technically a color. Genetically it doesn't exist.

It is now ... color genetics keep changing so fast it's difficult to keep up with things. I didn't read all of this but appears to be the result of a different location of the agouti allele that produces bay rather than black.

http://www.horse-genetics.com/brown-horses.html

They also have documented another dilute to go with the cream (palomino/buckskin/smoky black), dun, champagne dilutes ... pearl. Originated in the Spanish horses, Andalusian and Lusitano, has been found in QH and Paints and probably exists in mustangs.

http://www.horsetesting.com/Pearl.htm

[ShyAnne]

Originally Posted by GrannieD

The colt is 9 months old & shows real black & white..His dam is chestnut with no sign of black on her legs ...I am amazed at the silver bay looking so much like a palomino in your pic...I wouldn't doubt that it'd be very easy for a pinto palomino to actually be a silver bay with no legs to show soot coloring..the silver bays I'm familiar with weren't that light ...Very interesting...! I can't send pics of the mare & colt...Appreciate your information.. GrannieD

It could very well be hidden like this silver bay pinto:
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...xECizC_VF84Zww


And the possibility that the other is smokey black instead of Liver chestnut could be a possibility too...Like the others said