Breeding horses that carry the gray gene..

[wishful]

I think i remember this be discussed before so forgive me if I am repeating threads here. Did I see on here somewhere that if you breed two horses that both carry the gray gene that the foal will be born blind?

 

[HGFarm]

No, I do not recall the graying gene causing blindness .... I do know there can be eye issues with the silver dapple gene...

 

[rabbitsfizz]

It is Silvers that are supposed to have this problem. There is NO problem with Homozygous Greys

 

[kaykay]

keep in mind it is intensly bred silver dapples that have the eye problem. Rabbit i have seen more then i care to that carry this. The problem is most people dont know what it looks like so they dont even know its there. The worst one i ever saw was a filly at an auction. Everyone kept commenting on her cute bug eyes. I was shocked at how many people (experienced breeders) had no clue what that was that was making her eyes bug out.

The ones i have known personally were from several generations of exclusively silver dapple breeding on both the sire and dam side. This is why its so prevelant in the rocky mountain horse

 

[Ashley]

NO they are not blind, but the grays are supposed to have a higher chance of skin cancer.

 

[disneyhorse]

Grey horses do not generally have eye problems. Remember some breeds such as Andalusians, Percherons, and Lipizzaners have a DOMINANT amount of breeding horses that are grey!

They do tend to get a lot of melanomas (skin cancers) and I have found this to be true on the two grey Andalusians that live in my barn.

Andrea