A Colour Question - what could you get from this cross?

[Sunny]

What are the possible colours from a cross of a true grey stallion and a silver bay pinto mare. Actually, she "looks" palomino with her very rich gold colour, but she was clipped once very late in the year and came out a dapple grey. (She didn't look like the same horse AT ALL!!) Her full brother is a silver dapple. Her foal is due late June, so I don't have much longer to wait, but I'm just curious. What do you colour experts think?

 

[chandab]

Need a few more details to help you:

What color was the true grey stallion, before he greyed out? What color are his parents?

What color are the mare's parents?

With this information, perhaps we can help you narrow down the choices; otherwise she could have just about any base color with or without silver or true grey.

 

[targetsmom]

I am NOT a color expert but just felt like answering because I recently posted the same sort of question. The difference is that I had my "gray" (mare) tested so I knew what she was genetically. In about a week, you could find out too, by sending some mane hairs to one of the testing places. I use Animal Genetics. They also have a very neat color calculator on that site which will tell you what colors and what the percentage chances each is, but you really need more information.

Now, I can tell you that you will have a 50% chance of having a "gray" foal, which includes a 25% chance of a solid gray and a 25% chance of a gray pinto - UNLESS the mare is homozygous for tobiano OR the stallion is homozygous for gray. It also helps to know the colors of the parents because that will tell you if it is possible that they are homozygous. Both parents of the mare/stallion would need to be tobiano/gray for them to possibly be homozygous for that color. If, for example, the stallion was homozygous for gray AND the mare was homozygous for tobiano, you could ONLY have gray tobiano pinto foals.

Now it turns out that our "gray mare" is actuallly a silver bay pinto (frame overo) who is homozygous for black and can only produce black based foals, even when bred to our chestnut pinto stallion. Isn't this fun?

 

[Michael]

you might find this helpful.....or maybe not gets a little complicated....

http://www.equinecolor.com/charts.html Michael

 

[Sunny]

LOL! Thanks for trying to help! As I was reading Targetsmom's reply, I could feel my eyes glazing over, like they do every time I get into a colour discussion. LOL

Ok, I know that Cloud's (the mare) dam is indeed a palomino and that she is a silver bay just like her sire.

The stallion was black as a foal and has greyed out just like his dam, but I don't know the colour of his sire.

Thanks for the link to the colour chart, Michael. I'll go have a look at it now.

 

[Rachel]

Two years ago my silver bay pinto mare was bred to a true gray and we got a silver dapple filly with high rear socks. (It was the mare in my avatar.)

 

[Sunny]

Two years ago my silver bay pinto mare was bred to a true gray and we got a silver dapple filly with high rear socks. (It was the mare in my avatar.)

Wow, Rachel! I'd about give my eye teeth for a silver dapple pinto filly from my mare!!

 

[Minimor]

Okay. Silver bay dam is heterozygous for black. She got the black gene from her sire and a red gene from her dam. She does not carry cream; if she did she would be buckskin, not bay. She has agouti, obviously, but we don't know if she is homozygous for it or not. Her palomino dam could be hiding agouti, which means it could be possible she got agouti from both parents.

Sire was black before he turned grey. He does not carry agouti. We don't know if he might be smoky black, hiding a cream gene under the black...

So, you could get:

Black

silver black

bay

silver bay

chestnut

In the event that the dam is homozygous for agouti, then you can remove black and silver black from that list.

If the sire happens to be homozygous for black (he could be, if his grey parent was black based before turning grey) then you can remove chestnut from that list.

If the sire happens to be smoky black then you could add smoky black, buckskin & palomino to that list.

Naturally there is a 50% chance that the foal will go grey.

Obviously any color on that list could also come with or without pinto markings