Miniature Horse Information Pages

Equine Coat Colors
Breeding Paint Horses
Coat Color Genetics
The Champagne Horse Association
MSU College of Veterinary Medicine
Coat Colors - The Genetics Behind the Hide
Homozygous Appaloosa Coat Patterns
Line Breeding
The Colorful World of Paints and Pintos
Basic Genetics from Unicorner Farm
Arabian Coat Coloration
Horse Genetics - from the University of California, Davis
DNA: Heredity and Beyond
International Champagne Horse Registry

 Code Style/Patten Color Code Style/Patten Color
In the Stud Books!

• Well according to the Sponenberg color book, you can Buckskin always from these crosses; Buckskin to Bay; Bay to Cremello; Bay to Palomino; Bay to Smoky-(like a black-bay); Black to Buckskin; Buckskin to Buckskin; Buckskin to Chestnut; Buckskin to Cremello; Buckskin to Palomino; Buckskin to Smoky; -they can also commonly come through Bay to yellow silver (silver colored/with a darker mane & tail); Black to Cremello; Black to palomino; Black to yellow silver; Buckskin to Champagne; Buckskin to Chocolate silver; Buckskin to Grullo; Buckskin to Red Dun; Buckskin to Red Silver; Buckskin to yellow silver; Buckskin to Zebra Dun; Champagne to Palomino; Champagne to yellow silver; Chestnut to Cremello; Chestnut to Smoky; Chestnut to yellow silver; Chocolate silver to Cremello; Chocolate silver to palomino; Chocolate silver to yellow silver; Cremello to grullo; Cremello to palomino; Cremello to red Dun; Cremello to Red silver; Cremello to Smoky; Cremello to yellow silver; Cremello to Zebra Dun; Grullo to palomino; Grullo to yellow silver; Palomino to red silver; palomino to smoky; palomino to Zebra dun; red Dun to Smoky; Red dun to yellow silver; red silver to smoky; red silver to yellow silver; Smoky to yellow silver; Smoky to Zebra dun; Yellow silver to yellow silver and yellow silver to Zebra dun. --- I know this seems pretty mind boggling and it is sometimes really a crapshoot as to what color you may get with the Miniatures. These colors are for large horses and have not been proven true for ponies and Miniatures, although I am sure some of these combinations will work very well. --- The best way is to try to find out what color the grandparents and great-grandparents really are and then you will have a better idea of what you might get. ---My personal opinion of the best way to get a Buckskin is to breed a Bay to Cremello or Palomino, but I have seen other combinations work.
• There are two ways to get a buckskin, either a line back dun based color, where you generally need at least one parent exhibiting a distinct line back, or "eel stripe". these colors range from the true golden to the "grulla" or mouse shades. --- To get a buckskin that won't necessarily have a line back, you need to breed a bay horse to one with a dilute gene - esp. the cremello. we had a palomino pinto mare; sired by a cremello (Del Teras Snowman) we bred to our bay stallion. the first breeding produced a smutty buckskin colt with a few small patches of white on hips, withers, poll and legs. the second breeding produced a very pinto filly that will color out just a shade darker than mama, without any apparent black hairs at all. that puts those odds at about fifty/fifty, which is about as good as you can get.
• Bay x Perlino = Buckskin 100%.
• Can you please tell me the color description of a Perlino?
• Perlino is the cream dilution of dun so if you breed 2 duns together & get a blue eyed cream then it is a perlino. Perlino is an off white color & can have a sort of shadow marks on tail butt & mane (darker cream shadow). If bred to bay 100% buckskin can be produced. Cremello is the chestnut dilution cream & if bred to chestnut 100% palomino will be produced. Perlino to chestnut produces 50% buckskin & 50 % palomino. Cremello to bay produces 50 % palomino & 50 % buckskin. Cremello is generally blue eyed, though amber or orange eyes can happen & cremello is not as darker cream as perlino. Both look white but are not as they have a pale cream tinge to them. Hope this helps.

Lethal Roan (different views) - Remember the 3 foals that were aborted earlier? (after we wormed with Quest) Well, the lab results indicated toxic levels of chemicals in the fetuses, but not in the mares blood work-ups. At any rate - one of the foals was a possible combination of breeding 2 roans (true roans, not horses with the greying gene). The mare is an appaloosa background mare starting to roan; the stallion is a black roan appaloosa with spotting. Now I am all in a tither because I have a red sorrel grandson of Orion Light that is starting to roan (not grey out - roan. At least from what I have understood). Combine this with a bay roan appaloosa mare, the red roan mare, and a blue roan mare (this may be the greying gene though), and I am now wondering if I have made a horrible mistake in stallion selections. Can anyone shed a little light on the subject?

• Yes, there are such things as lethal roans. It is believed that this lethal gene is directly related to roaning, this is why overo to overo is also lethal. Most of the overo horses (or minis) have a roaning gene in them. If one of your roans carry the lethal white gene, you can avoid getting this result by breeding to another non-lethal white roan. To get a lethal white all of the time both horses must carry the lethal white gene. If you breed a lethal white roan to a non-lethal white roan, then the chances are less but can re-occur. Evidently either both or one of your horses carry this gene, to fully avoid this lethal white gene, do not breed your horse to another roan... It will not pass to the foal if one is solid with no roaning. I have been in horses over 25 years and never had a lethal white, but I do read alot of genetic research on the subject. The research in roaning will tell you that roan to roan is more potent than overo to over.
• I don't claim to be an authority, but have done more than my fair share of genetics classes in school and studied many different authors on the subject. Will try to answer your questions. --- First, a brief description of true roan and gray, I see so many of the Mini people call a greying horse a blue or red roan, and whoa baby if you say any different! Then when the horse finally goes gray-white they are surprised that "Bessy" just finally "roaned out". --- A roan horse is born roan, with white hairs distributed throughout the coat and normally a dark face and legs or "points". A grey horse is born a uniform darker color and will progressively become white over the years. The first place you will see the white hairs appear is around the eyes and face. A horse of any coat pattern can have the greying gene, Appy, Pinto, etc. They may have common white markings such as a blaze, star, socks etc. I had a colt born solid black who within his first week had the white hairs appear on the face, as a yearling he was a spectacular salt and pepper grey. Everyone who saw him thought he was the neatest "blue roan" they had ever seen! I had the pleasure of seeing him as a 2 yr old and his owner was amazed as he is now almost 50% white. I probably could have sold him for more as a "blue roan" but I'm just too darn honest! :) --- I hope this will assist you in determining which your horses are, now to make matters more complicated, it is possible, but uncommon, for a horse to carry BOTH the roan and greying genes. IE. a roan horse could be born but eventually turn white if the greying gene is present, but this is very unlikely, but a possibility. --- If a foal receives the homozygous or (RR) alleles this is lethal to the embryo. All roan horses you see are heterozygous (Rr) as they are the only ones born related to the Homozygous being lethal to the embryo. --- When TRUE roan horses are mated to each other the foal crop will be decreased since some will inevitably be homozygous, but the number of resulting roan offspring will be increased as the foals which are not lethal roans have a greater chance of being a roan. --- The common roan equation is as follows: Rr (roan) x Rr (roan = 1RR (lethal), 2 Rr (roan), 1rr (non-roan). --- This is a 1:2:1 ratio, the RR embryos will die which decreases the foal crop by 25%, there will be two roans produced for every solid foal. --- Now, it sounds like the horses you mention which are "roaning" might possibly be greying? How old are they? Is the white concentration significantly different than before? It sounds as if you yourself have a pretty good awareness of the roan and greying deal. I hope this info helps you, let me know what you find out. I am pretty sure out of all the horses you described at least one must be a true roan in which case you have to decide if your stud is also a true roan.
• My research is limited, but because my favorite stallion is a blue roan, this issue was important to me. I understand that a white to white cross may result in a lethal white gene. The baby will be born alive, but will not survive because of the digestive tract's inability to absorb nutrients. A roan to roan cross gives a 25% chance of RR. The embryo dies shortly after conception. Often you don't even know the mare was ever pregnant. The harm (as opposed to having to deal with a dead foal) is a 25% decrease in fertility rates. That means, ignoring all other factors, 25% of the time the embryo will abort. I simply understand the risks. If I had a really nice roan mare that I wanted to breed to my stallion, I would just keep trying until I got a baby.
• I have been following this "thread" on the lethal effect of breeding roan to roan. If I remember correctly, this event was documented by a gentleman who used Shetland Ponies to develop the model of this occurrence. Roan to Roan breedings would give you about a 25% chance of a lethal combination (homozygous for the roan gene). If my memory serves me correctly though, the abortion occurs at around 5 months gestation. This would put you rather late in the breeding season, and I have found it is very difficult to get a mare back in foal who has aborted after 50 days or so of gestation. I noted this information about lethals with roans many years ago, and we have made a point of breeding roans only to non-roans. I also think that this data applies to the "classic" roaning pattern, meaning a darkish head, legs, mane and tail and the body coat having white hairs mixed in. There are also light roan type horses; we own several who have a normal colored head and extremities, but there is a fair amount of white hair mixed in with the hair on the body, face and legs. My own opinion is that this is another "roan type gene", as these horses, when bred to non-roans, don't produce in my experience the "classic" roans with the dark heads and points. I also feel that roany Appaloosas are probably exhibiting roaning due to a gene other than the classic roan gene. As our roan apps, with a self colored head and points, when they produce solids, have not produced the classic roan with the dark points. Of course there are "true roans"-with the dark heads and points, who have in addition genes for Appaloosa coloring. They of course could produce lethals when bred to "true roans." These breeding results are my personal observations from hundreds of breedings, many of which involved roany appaloosas as well as "true roans". Just to be safe though, we do not breed any horse that remotely looks roan to another roan. We also do not breed roans to greys, as perhaps the true grey horse (which usually has a lighter head), might be masking the roan gene. We just avoid the whole lethal roan issue and breed only non-roans to roans.
• So as not to confuse the issue. Lethel Roan is homozygous roan & the mare aborts. True roans have their base color on head, legs & mane & tail with white ticked hairs all over their body, any roan to roan mating can cause lethal (weather black, brown, bay or chestnut roan). As for the frame overo LW, it has no relevance to the roan gene at all. There are actually very few true roans in paints, their is a roan look that sabino or cross pattern combination sabino's have & this is lots of white ticking caused by the Rabicano gene which goes hand in hand with sabino. LW is homozygous frame overo only & nothing to do with the roan gene at all. Only frame overo produces lethal white foals on a small scale theorized at 25% but in actual breeding only happens about 8% of breeding frame overo to frame overo. Splashed White is another lethal in homozygous form & these are aborted at approx. 3 months but again this is separate to both frame overo LW & lethal roan. Just don't want anyone thinking roan has a relevance to LW frame overo, there's too much confusion already.
• have only heard of lethal white coming from overo to overo or red roan to red roan. I am not a specialist in this area but had heard about an old Shetland breeder who swore when he bred red roans to red roans he would get LW; but then again others have had no problem. We in the Miniature/Shetland Overo patterns breeding so far have not produced enough genetic horses of these colors to have a serious problem yet with LW like the Quarter Horse Paint breeders do, but we will soon in the future be dealing with this problem more. Good Luck and if you are worried about a roan to a roan, I think you could either breed a roan to a solid or a blue roan to a bay roan and I don't think this problem would show up.
• From my studies, as well as experience in the field, a roan (classic roan with a dark head, points, mane and tail) is a roan. The color of roan has no bearing on the fact that the horse is a roan. The roan pattern is inherited independently of the color, or pinto pattern, or appaloosa pattern. They are all separate genes. For example, a bay roan bred to a sorrel could give you a red roan foal, or perhaps a solid bay foal without roaning. From my point of view, any true roan, regardless of its color, bred to another true roan could yield a lethal roan fetus. There is documentation on the lethal roan syndrome out there. I have seen mention of it several times in the past. I have not seen proof of this in our herd, as we follow the precaution of not breeding roan to roan, as we wish to not "tempt fate".

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