I need some help with color...

Miniature Horse Talk Forums

Help Support Miniature Horse Talk Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Silver can be seen in chestnut or any other non-black based horses if you know where to look....hooves may be stripped and often they have a kind of mousey grey undercoat...grey horses turn white much faster when the silver gene is present...now of course this is my own experiance over the years but for me silver is less hidden then it used to be!
No, sorry, Silver only affects Black . Striped hooves aren't a hard and fast indicator of Silver as they can and are caused by so many other factors. It has been known for some time now that Silver does not affect Red.
 
Horse color genetics fascinate me! Here's a pic of our silver bay mare, Onyx. Your mare looks silver bay too, and I agree with the idea that one of your foals might be a silver black and the other is definitely silver black. The sire is a silver black too, but may carry some modifiers like others suggested. I see the sire has pink skin over the nose, that is not necessarily an indicator of the creme gene. Could be like others suggested, he was actually born a max white pinto with the grey gene. In that case, he could have had a "marking" or markings on his nose that indicate where a blaze would have been with the pigment. Of course these are my opinions so take them with a grain of salt lol. You have very pretty horses!!!
default_xreiter.gif
Your mare is pretty
default_smile.png
The genetics fascinate me too, but most animal color genetics are interesting. The only think I am 100% sure on is what I see now lol, I can only guess about my stallion for now. I do have a pic of my stallion's 2011 filly that I grabbed from my other computer if that would help figure any of this out...(I will post the photos after this)

As for the foals, which one do you think is the definitely a silver black? I have only seen one silver black foal in my life and she was black black with chrome coloring

That is all I ask for is opinions so I can have an idea of what they are for my own curiosity sake
default_smile.png
and Thank you~
 
I don't know if this will help, but I just asked the man who bred and raised my stallion to send my pics of the 2011 filly out of my stallion. I have her 2 week old pic, she was born white white, they tested the foal for LWO because of her white/blue-eyes https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...2155593.111538.333839383306486&type=3&theaterSunshie.jpg

and here is her last October pic Sunshine.jpg Sunshine 2.jpg see her extreme molting around her eyes? She also has the molting under her tail and spots on her butt when she shed to her summer coat.....

Her dam is a Chestnut, plain ol' chestnut she carries no other modifiers, this is why the Dom White came to mind for me
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Could be DW- I did think of that- it is often confused with Max Sabino but I am not up on DW and the way it expresses.....
 
A max white pinto can be caused by a variety of patterns or just one in homozygous form (like splash or sabino) or both, so it is absolutely possible that your friend has a horse that is max white with a pinto pattern that is homozygous and therefore almost always produces a foal with some white, while yours may have a variety that teamed up together or maybe is in fact homozygous for sabino (or splash), but the sabino is just extremely suppressed on your foal. What I'm getting at is that not all max white pintos always pass on a pinto gene, and even when they do, we may not see it. The filly looks like she is sabino and splash with those blue eyes and mottling. The mottling comes along with sabino (but can be caused by grey or appy as well).

Now it is late and I might read this in the morning and realize none of it makes sense
default_blush.png
 
Well, silver causes striped hooves, and sabino causes the mottling that you see in the second picture, and sclera isn't just caused by appy. I actually don't see it in the second picture anyway. Of course there could be appy, I'm just not seeing it. I'm seeing sabino.

Thanks Jane! I'm glad that was coherent
default_laugh.png
 
Could be DW- I did think of that- it is often confused with Max Sabino but I am not up on DW and the way it expresses.....
I am going to test him for that as soon as I can, the more I read about the DW the more I think that is what he is, since he has an "absence of color in his coat, but not in his skin" as a friend with a DW QH tells me about hers.
 
I'm going to say Silver-Bay for your mare -- especially with those dark sock and beautiful light mane and tail.

But SOMEONE is throwing some appy genes, IMHO -- as this first filly has beautifully striped hooves and appears to have some mottling on her muzzle, and the second girl has the sclera, mottling on her face, and you said has mottling under her tail and spots on her butt when she sheds out. So somewhere, there is some appy in the mix. What are the registered names? Maybe we could find where this is coming from by looking at the pedigrees?

/monthly_03_2013/post-45170-0-57643000-1364489274_thumb.jpg /monthly_03_2013/post-45170-0-55834800-1364598517_thumb.jpg
Her mane didn't used to look like that lol, a LOT of hard work getting her to look that pretty, she looked like a shaggy chestnut when I first got her lol

The first filly does have stripped front hooves, but her sire is the silver black stallion. Her mom is the silver bay in question. She also does have a "few" dots on her muzzle and "reverse molting" (pink dots on black skin) under her tail and on her udders.

The second filly is by my white stallion and a different mare, but yes she does have the molting BAD, my stallion doesn't have as much.

All of the minis are, regrettably, "grade" the bay mare was born grade or so I was told. My stallion was born out of a reg. mare (I will ask the breeder to see if he can recall her name she has been gone for almost 6 years now) and a stallion that had temp papers that were never renewed. I can tell you that my stallion's gradnsire was a pinto (or pintoloosa) and his granddam was a blanket appy, with a lot of blanket. His sire never showed appy, but always threw solid white foals out of appy or his solid white mare (she was reg cremello but I kind of doubt that is true now) and have 2 foals that were out of solid mares that are appy, and 3 that are solid black. I will see if I can get more info. I haven't talked to him sense he sent me those pics last Monday lol
 
A max white pinto can be caused by a variety of patterns or just one in homozygous form (like splash or sabino) or both, so it is absolutely possible that your friend has a horse that is max white with a pinto pattern that is homozygous and therefore almost always produces a foal with some white, while yours may have a variety that teamed up together or maybe is in fact homozygous for sabino (or splash), but the sabino is just extremely suppressed on your foal. What I'm getting at is that not all max white pintos always pass on a pinto gene, and even when they do, we may not see it. The filly looks like she is sabino and splash with those blue eyes and mottling. The mottling comes along with sabino (but can be caused by grey or appy as well).

Now it is late and I might read this in the morning and realize none of it makes sense
default_blush.png
Makes sense, just trying to get some ideas here :D I have noticed in the horse world there are always color "exceptions" to any color. I just don't have the extra funds to do the color testing right now so trying to get some ideas to kind of narrow it down to what to test before spending a bunch of $$ on tests that are not needed if you know what I mean and a friend of mine said that this was the best place to do that
default_smile.png
 
Color genetics are so much fun but can also be sooo confusing.

The first mare is a silver of some type - w/o testing can be hard to determine which (silver black, silver brown, silver bay). I have two mares that I had tested - I swore they were silver bays - but they tested heterozygous black, heterozygous silvers.

The stallion with the white blaze appears to be a silver black. CONSIDER this - her foal could be a homozygous silver. Our two mares that are homozygous silver "present" as palominos at differnt times of the year. I almost fell off my chair when you stated that she'd been born bay - but completely lost all the black in her coat in 6 weeks. That's a new one to me, LOL. Sure don't see any black in the 3 photos you posted.

Here are two photos of a mare that is homozygous (tested) silver, no bay and heterozygous black:

In May 2012, Bell at 20 years of age.

12may20lrt776.jpg


In March 2013, Bell, at not quite 21 yrs of age:

13mar30ncwhma006.jpg


Since this mare is heterozygous black, she has produced several palomino & buckskin offspring when bred to palomino &/or cremello stallions. All of those foals carry a silver gene that can be passed on - some have been tested, some have produced silver when not bred to silvers or chestnut that are silver carriers.

Your 2nd foal looks to be silver based (to me). From the pics, I'm not seeing good leg color (some my silvers are impossible for me to see leg markings on except at birth or when they are clipped). Someone mentioned "goggles" - but the only lite hair I see is in the 2nd pic and I've seen that with my silver blacks (tested). The other pics don't display any goggles. In the bright sunlight, I've found that my silver foals seem to go thru a fade stage where they all look palomino in their foal coats... You can see the difference when they are clipped or when they shed out as yearlings.

Neither of these fillies carries a cream gene - both parents of both fillies have been tested. I haven't had them tested yet - this weeek it goes out. Both have a possibility of being homozygous silver, the closer/larger (Shamrock) one could be homozgyous tobiano. The smaller filly is Classy.

12may20claSha777.jpg


Here is a photo of Bell (1st two pics) in March 2012 w/ Classy just hours after her birth (Bell is not shed out yet) on 29 March 2012:

12mar29cla320.jpg
12mar29cla288.jpg


And yes, from year to year, our silver mares have different shades to their winter coats. You track it from 2009 to current on the two mares Bell and Bit from our website... The foals often have different shades in different years, too...

On your stallion - I don't know. Personally, I would say w/o testing that he's a combo of appaloosa and pinto markings - making him "extreme white". DW is a fairly new test and I don't know anything about it other than what I've read about it on the Animal Genetics website out of Florida... Since that one foal appears to be a black based silver - you might be able to say he is at least heterozygous black (Ee), but from there?
 
Here is another comparison with Bell (again):

Bell and her 2010 filly, GG. The filly is sired by a chestnut, minimal white tobiano stallion.

June 10, 2010 - hours after birth:

10jun10gi109.jpg


August 15 2010. She is not clipped and has the least amount of hair of any of my silver foals so far...

10aug15begg06.jpg


October 2010 -

10oct19gg007.jpg


April 2011 - she's the "funky shedding" filly on the far left. She is not a roan:

11apr26gkeko976.jpg


and here at in March 2013 at 33 months of age during her 2nd pair hitch - back with her dam, Bell:

13mar21begg921.jpg


She is also in the picture in previous post behind Bell, tied to the trailer (march 30, 2013). Both Bell (Ee, aa, ZZ) and GG (Ee, aa, nT, nZ) have been color tested.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top