Breeding Blue roans

[wishful]

Is it ok to Breed a blue roan stallion to a Blue roan mare?

With all the do'sand dont's I have trouble keeping up so please forgive me if this has already been asked.

Thanks for your in put.

 

[Kendra]

In a roan to roan breeding there is a 25% chance that the result will be a non-viable fetus that will be lost early in the pregnancy.

 

[Heidi]

In a roan to roan breeding there is a 25% chance that the result will be a non-viable fetus that will be lost early in the pregnancy.

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I do not know the technical reasons, but this is how I understand it...

You must have one roan parent to get a roan foal, but you would only get roan 50% of the time, even when breeding to two roans. There are no homozygous roan foals, because they are always lost before pregnancy can be carried to term. Sort of like the lethal-white paint foals, but the HZ roans are always lost well before birth and don't suffer the way a lethal white foal would.

I am not saying the roan foals have the specific problem with incomplete intestines that the lethal-white foals have, just that genetically the mare's body recognizes something 'wrong' with the fetus and it is either absorbed or aborted or the two roan genes cause the fetus' viability to 'fail' and it is then aborted in the normal manner.

If you choose to breed two roans, be prepared for a higher incidence of failed breedings to occur before your mare gets pregnant and carries the foal to term. If she keeps the foal, it is because the foal has received one roan gene from one parent and no roan gene from the other parent, resulting in a (usual) heterozygous roan foal.

IMO, you would be better off breeding the roan to a non-roan. Your % of getting roan will still be the same but you could possibly eliminate costly breeding and re-breeding for your mare to catch pregnant with a viable foal.

Heidi