Frame overos (LWO) and there eyes

[sihri]

I had heard about pintos with the lethal white gene and that aside from blue eyes, carriers of this gene can also be blind. I was researching this and came across a previous lil' beginnings topic on frame overos and the lethal white. So I desided to post this and see if anyone here has ever heard of this before. I am planning on breeding pinto colored miniature horses and would like to know what to look for aside from the testing which I do plan to have done as I currently have a silver bay pinto (brown eyes) and a gray/white medicine hat pinto (with1 gray and 1 blue eye).

 

[ThreeCFarm]

I've heard it said that sometimes splash horses are deaf, but I've never heard of blindness connected to the frame gene.

Testing is a very good idea!!

 

[Dona]

NO connection between LWO (Frame) horses and blindness! I've been breeding them for many years & have never had a blind horse.

Also, the deafness "thought" to be connected with some Splash horses, I think was actually traced to certain bloodlines who just happened to be Splash. At least, this was the last I heard.

 

[targetsmom]

I never heard of blindness connected with the frame gene but I have heard of deafness being associated with splash and with frame. I raise pintos myself and have some that carry frame and some with the splash gene (I think, but no test for it yet) but everyone seems to hear (and see) just fine. I had my Rowdy bred stallion tested for lethal white (frame) and he is negative, so I haven't had all my mares tested. One Rowdy/Blue Boy bred mare with one blue eye is LWO+ (which is why I had the stallion tested before I got him) and I suspect the blue-eyed Rowdy bred mare we just got might be carrying frame (or splash) but it doesn't matter. As long as your stallion is LWO- (like ours) you don't need to test the mares. But if he is LWO+ (frame) then you need to test all your mares, especially any that are Rowdy bred, just to be safe.

 

[Carolyn R]

Frame overos can appear to be solid colors, can be loud, can have brown or blue eyes ( I have never heard of a genetic link to blindness but I have heard alot of the old wives tales that blue horses are blind.)

As far as splash goes, last I knew on the deafness it was due to the pigmentation inside the ear.

This was taken from the link listed below...

"The splash pattern is also associated with occasional congenital deafness. Most splashed white horses are, however, not deaf, and those which are usually cope with it well. Deafness occurs in other white or white patterned, blue-eyed animals, including dogs (Cattanach, 1999) and cats (Bosher, and Hallpike, 1965). Here an absence of melanocytes in the inner ear leads to death of the hair cells, which are necessary for perceiving sound. Almost all splash horses have pigment around the outside of the ear, but this does not indicate whether pigment occurs in the inner ear. Presumably though most Splash horses do have inner ear pigment or deafness would be more prevalent among them."

splash article

 

[rabbitsfizz]

As far as we know, without a test for Splash, the link to deafness is due to a lack of pigmentation in the inside of the ear.

There is no link to blindness associated with OLWS, there is only "White Foal" syndrome associated with Homozygous OLWS animals.

OLWS in h/Z form is harmless.

It is no longer certain that OLWS even causes blues eyes, the vote is out on that one, certainly an awful lot of OLWS horses do not have blue eyes, whereas and awful lot of Splash horses do (sometimes blue eyes are the only indication of Splash)

Since there is no test for Splash there is no way to tell if the blue eyes on OLWS horses is not being caused by the presence of Splash.

I believe a test is quite near, one can only hope!!