Appy questions

[Becky]

Kim, thanks for responding.

So, if a horse inherits PATN only does it have any appaloosa characteristics or does it appear solid? And the same with LP?

 

[Bonny]

Thanks! Very informative!

Question, what chances are there that an fewcap stallion will produce colored foals with a solid mare? By colored, I mean visual spots or blankets.

 

[HGFarm]

Yes, Tommy, that is 'not bad' LOL It takes something special to make my head really swivel and Catch has that 'something' that just stands out. Not just the spots- he has an air and 'presence' that makes folks take notice when he shows up! He is just handsome all the way around.

I guess I am too old and set in my ways to teach new tricks, so you wont find any pintoloosas coming from my farm unless one of the neighbors mares were to sneak over or something, LOL

But I know everyone has their own tastes, color favorites, etc.... so that is always fun. Life would be dull and boring if we all liked the same thing.

I dont know that any terms are 'outdated' and because a horse has a leopard parent doesnt mean it is going to sire or produce leopards. Even a leopard is not going to reproduce leopards.... yes, you may get them occasionally but you will get a variety of colors, or perhaps none at all, LOL

Theory has it that a fewspot is about 99% for producing/siring color, a snowcap is about 96%. This was based on actual breeding and decades of study that have gone on by actual breeders and folks that have been hands on for more years than I have been around. So I am sure a fewcap would fall into that category somewhere.

Again, 'colored' includes horses just born with characteristics... but there is no telling what you would get with a fewcap and a solid..... could be characteristics, could be a handful of spots, could be a roan, could be a blanket, could be........................ You just never know until you try it and even then, you could do the same breeding 10 times and get 10 different patterns.

Come on Tommy, jump in. You know you want to, LOL

 

[hairicane]

Ok u guys asked for more pix, lol. Below is my homebred Orion grandson Hairicane Orions I See Spots. He is a buckskin leopard and was born looking just like this except his buckskin color has come in richer. BUT he also has blue eyes so is actually a pintaloosa!

Below is Icees half brother and another Orion grandson. This is Hairicane Orions Rodeo King and he is a sorrel pintaloosa. Kings dam is a bay pintaloosa. King jumped the fence 1 day last year and this may on the same day we had 2 foals born! He produced an appy with partial blue eyes and a pintaloosa very similar to him with blue eyes

As far as homozygous appy minis I happen to own a homozygous black fewcap stallion that was born with the same pattern he has now and has not roaned out. Here is Silver Bluff/Hairicane Sir Barton depending on registry. He is producing lots of loud foals but the most striking seem to come out of solid mares. Go figure! If bred to appys he makes lots of homozygous foals.

Below is one of this years Bart foals out of a solid black but appy bred mare. Other than being totally fuzzy at birth he was born this color

/sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs120.snc4/36385_433529917175_591992175_5780109_3674540_n.jpg

Below are 2 homozygous girls I bred and have recently sold. The sorrel snowcap is Hairicane Daisy Dukes and she was born this color and has not roaned out any. The black fewcap filly Lily actually has a couple spots on her butt which usually homozygous appys dont have but the Drs from the appaloosa project explained that her spots are irregular jagged edged and not the typical round or oval spots that the non homozygous spotted appys have. Lily may roan out hard to tell as we shaved her 2 times this summer and that lightens the black color. Lily is sired by our Lucky four Rebels Real McCoy, the only appaloosa son of the great Sids Rebel.

 

[hairicane]

And speaking of McCoy here is Lucky Four Rebels Real McCoy, sired by Sids Rebel out of a lovely appy mare. McCoy is tiny dont think he even makes 29" and has a stunning head and long archy neck for such a little guy.

He was born solid but had all appy characteristics and has gradually colored up to this point. McCoy sired some awesome foals this year including a so far solid sorrel filly that I would bet money will one day be a colored appy. She reminds me a lot of McCoy.

And my love, National Champion Moss Grove Rio Rhondo, one of the best moving minis u will ever see. Rio was born chestnut with a blanket and spots but roaned out to mostly white with spots by the time he was weaned. In this photo Rio is closely shaved and u can see the blanket area has white skin under it and u can see his original pattern that he was born with.

Oh somebody stop me I could go on and on. Yep I love the challenge of breeding quality horses with appy color!

 

[Kim~Crayonboxminiatures]

So, if a horse inherits PATN only does it have any appaloosa characteristics or does it appear solid? And the same with LP?

If a horse inherits PATN only will be solid, no appy roaning, no appy characteristics

If it inherits LP only is a varnish roan appaloosa (often born solid, but will have typical appy characteristics of mottled skin, striped hooves, etc)

 

[Kim~Crayonboxminiatures]

dont know that any terms are 'outdated' and because a horse has a leopard parent doesnt mean it is going to sire or produce leopards. Even a leopard is not going to reproduce leopards.... yes, you may get them occasionally but you will get a variety of colors, or perhaps none at all, LOL

Only outdated in terms of what they carry genetically. A "near" leopard and a "true" leopard carry the same pattern gene to produce the leopard pattern. Yes, it does not guarantee that you will get a leopard, but the genetic potential is "in there" for them to produce one. The terms can be confusing to folks new to appaloosas trying to learn the genetics of the patterns.

If you breed a varnish roan to a varnish roan no many how many times you repeat the cross, you will never get a leopard because they don't have the leopard pattern gene.

 

[Becky]

Thank you, Kim! That helps a lot!!!

Thanks for the excellent pictures, too, everyone.

Maybe this thread can be saved later to the Best Of The Forum? Lots of education here. But, in the meantime, lets keep it going!

 

[HGFarm]

Absolutely... love seeing the input from others too. Hairicane, it is nice to see snowcaps that did not roan out. Both parents on that mare are Appy? And really interesting pattern on King....

Ok, so if a varnish roan is sired by a leopard, and is bred to another roan who is out of a leopard, you are telling me that it can never produce a leopard? I guess I am having difficulty understanding that as the genetics ARE there- you cant just erase what is in horses background. When we had the full sized horses, our stallion had a blanket with peacock spots to his withers. His sire was also a blanketed stallion. His dam a leopard. He was bred to a mare that was a roan with spots over her hips and the resulting foal was a leopard. Neither parent was a leopard, so how would that gene be passed on then- it was in the background. Perhaps I am just not understanding what you mean.

Keep the pics coming- it is all quite interesting.

 

[Becky]

Do horses with LP only always have varnish? Or can they have other characteristics with no varnish? I'm trying to figure out how you get appies with no varnish. My new stallion has no apparant varnish. I prefer appys with no visual varnish so they don't lose their color as they mature.

 

[hairicane]

There are so many questions about appys that are not answered yet. Remember when someone posted about suppressing factors? Minis seem in general to have many more suppressing factors than full sized appys do. And blacks and black based in general have more suppressing factors than the red based horses. So you could have a mini appy that is black based and it might show very little appy color BUT it could carry a loud pattern and its loud color is mostly suppressed. Now if that horse is bred and does not pass on all the suppression factors but does pass on its loud appy genes then the foal could end up super loud. Thats why sometimes 2 very minimal colored appy DO produce a loud foal.

HG--- both parents on both the sorrel snowcap mare and the blk few/spot filly are appy. But 1 parent of each of them is minimally colored.

 

[hairicane]

Do horses with LP only always have varnish? Or can they have other characteristics with no varnish? I'm trying to figure out how you get appies with no varnish. My new stallion has no apparant varnish. I prefer appys with no visual varnish so they don't lose their color as they mature.

Good luck with that Becky! Appy breeders have been working on that for years now with limited success. But with the Doctors at "the Appaloosa Projects" years of hard work we are closer than ever before to having firm answers and hopefully genetic tests to know what your appy can and cannot produce. And anyone interested in appys should subscribe to the Appy projects Class room website. You will learn sooooo much! The Drs have been out to my farm several times so far and I learn so much from talking to them each time. And the online discussions are great. Once u subscribe u can go in and read all the archives and really learn all there is to know so far. Then u can ask questions about your own horses and send pix and info and they will answer to the best of their knowledge. That is invaluable!

 

[Becky]

And blacks and black based in general have more suppressing factors than the red based horses.

I agree with that. I've certainly found that to be true in pintos. Generally your loudest colors/patterns are in the red based horses.

 

[Kim~Crayonboxminiatures]

Absolutely... love seeing the input from others too. Hairicane, it is nice to see snowcaps that did not roan out. Both parents on that mare are Appy? And really interesting pattern on King....

Ok, so if a varnish roan is sired by a leopard, and is bred to another roan who is out of a leopard, you are telling me that it can never produce a leopard? I guess I am having difficulty understanding that as the genetics ARE there- you cant just erase what is in horses background. When we had the full sized horses, our stallion had a blanket with peacock spots to his withers. His sire was also a blanketed stallion. His dam a leopard. He was bred to a mare that was a roan with spots over her hips and the resulting foal was a leopard. Neither parent was a leopard, so how would that gene be passed on then- it was in the background. Perhaps I am just not understanding what you mean.

This is where it gets complicated.

The leopard pattern gene has a variety of expressed "patterns", so it doesn't always "look" leopard. In your case above, the stallion with the blanket with spots to his withers actually was carrying the leopard gene, even though he didn't "look" like a leopard. Remember unless a horse is homozygous for a gene (has two copies), the foal has a 50/50 chance of inheriting that gene. So if the parent of your varnish roan was a leopard but only had one copy(not homozygous) of the leopard gene, the foal might not inherit it, but still inherit the LP gene and so you get an appy roan.

Here is the link to the diagram of how varied the leopard gene can appear physically on a horse, while genetically they carry the gene for leopard, and below that is a description from The Appaloosa Horse Project website.

http://www.appaloosaproject.info/images/photoalbum/4/PATNImage.jpg

<<<3. PATN-1: The “Leopard Family” Gene Study

White patterning in Appaloosas appears to be a polygenic (many gene) trait. If this is indeed the case, an Appaloosa will display some amount of white Appaloosa-type patterning at birth if it has inherited both LP and one or more of the genes that help to produce Appaloosa-type patterning. We have given the generic name “PATN” (for “pattern”) to these genes. Phenotype-based evidence suggests there are a variety of these, with varying amounts of effect. Some seem to produce large amounts of patterning, while others produce minor amounts.

The Appaloosa Project is working to identify the gene responsible for very high levels of expression found in “leopard lines”. These are families of horses that have very high white pattern levels, and include leopard and near-leopard as well as fewspot and near-fewspot horses. This gene’s proposed name is PATN-1 (see above image for proposed continuum of expression). The study involves analysis of DNA collected from large half-sibling families produced by fewspot stallions, bred to non-Appaloosa mares.>>>>

Aren't appy genetics so simple, LOL! Whenever I start to try and explain what I understand, I realize it's so darn complicated, I'm not sure I fully understand what I thought I did!!

 

[HGFarm]

Interesting Hairicane on the parents of your snowcaps that are not roaning. Apparently the minimal Appies that are the parent are perhaps not passing on the roaning then, since they are not doing it, and that combined with the genetics on the other side... you may have a great combo there without the roaning thing going on.

Also interesting about red based vs. black based showing more color or louder color variations on the red ones, even with the pintos. I will have to pay more attention to that....!!

I tell you, it sure is an interesting world genetically, but I think it's a sight to behold when you see a herd of multicolored Appies and every single one is so different than the next!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Even though I've been breeding mini apps for over 10 years now, I'm learning a lot from this thread! For instance, I'm surprised at how many people say they get louder color from non appy mares. Why is that? You'd think you'd have more chance of a colored baby when breeding appy to appy. But I'm sure gonna try this out next spring! I'll breed my cremello mares to my appy stallion instead of my solid bay and hopefully get buckskin leopard babies!

Come to think of it, I had a black, frosted blanket stallion for several years, and the only baby he threw that was colored at birth was from a solid mare with characteristics! The others were all born solid and roaned or snowflaked later. Can we keep this thread going all winter?

Sure makes for some interesting reading!

 

[Becky]

Come to think of it, I had a black, frosted blanket stallion for several years, and the only baby he threw that was colored at birth was from a solid mare with characteristics!

Wouldn't that have been an appaloosa mare? I 'assumed' when people are talking solid horses, they are referring to those with no appy in the background. But, I could be wrong!

This is a great thread!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

You're right, Becky! I was thinking 'colored' as opposed to 'solid', but characteristics do qualify her as appy. She's had appy babies by non appy stallions, so there's no doubt about it.

 

[HGFarm]

LOL, maybe if we all compare enough notes and pictures, we can figure out something, LOL

I would think that the more you outcross to non Appaloosa, the weaker the color link is going to be. As far as getting loud color from solid mares, I would consider that luck, hahaha but have known it to happen more than once! A friend has a non Appy stallion, who was bred to a mare with Appy characteristics and only a few white hairs- and had a colt with a HUGE blanket and spots! Also have another friend who has a little varnish roan mare she bred to a solid stallion and also got a colt with a huge blanket and spots. What is up with that?!! (as I glanced around at my then solid foals, lol)

I do still breed for conformation first, with good movement, but it would be nice to combine that with some loud color from time to time. I am hoping my fewcap colt Spot will help with some of that. He is really refined, has a neck that goes on forever and nice overall balance. Now I just have to wait til he grows up!!

 

[ohmt]

Castlerock, do you by chance have any pictures of a horse that has silvered out? I've never heard of a silver black horse being born black and then silvering out...I have a silver black appy mare (solid with characteristics) and she was born her platinum silver color. She doesn't have any spots (I've wetted her down to make sure) but she's out of my varnish mare who doesn't throw a lot of color. I have a silver bay appy filly with the biggest spots across her rump I've ever seen (she was born red with white spots on her rump like the op's stallion). She is 3 and seems to be getting more and more spots-they're not disappearing. I also have a silver bay leopard appaloosa stallion who is covered in black spots from head to toe and they are black black.

Now you've got me worried! I am hoping that silver doesn't really hide color as I seem to have a bit of it!