Current picture of Bird

[which_chick]

I take regular pictures of my horses, for as long as I have them, so that I can see how they grow and change over time. Sometimes this results in several months worth of phone pics I can't look at (#deadbaby) but sometimes, over the years, I can see how my riding (and maturity of the horse) changes the appearance of the animal.



I have a series of pictures of Bird and just updated them with a recent shot, so the whole run is here.

My mom has spent Bird's entire life waiting for him to look "real". *sigh* He was particularly wonky-looking as a two year old. I mean, I'm not in denial here. He was weird-looking at two.

But he looks better now, more like a horse.

Comments

[which_chick]

Grey horses are born some color (foal coat color, in Bird's case a reddish brown color called chestnut though even in the early pictures you can see the grey coming through his foal coat around the eyes) and then get progressively whiter. In some horses this can take a very long time so that you have a lovely dapple grey color for many years. Generally, though, Arabs that are born chestnut go grey in a hurry. Bird was pert near white by the time he was three.

Horses that are born a non-grey color do not change color very much. If they're born bay, they stay bay. But greys... they get lighter and lighter over time. That beautiful iron dapple grey WILL NOT stay that color unless it's a Breyer horse.

[crockpotcauldron]

I knew dapple grays were just the attractive salt and pepper stage of a gray horse going white, but I didn't know about the secret extra foal color options! That's really cool.

[which_chick]

Foal coat color in horses gone grey lets you know things about the genetics of the horse's coat color. Grey is a dominant gene over all other horse colors, indicated by GG or Gg. If the horse has GG, the horse is grey and all of its offspring will be grey. If the horse has Gg, the horse will be grey but only 50% of its offspring (if bred to colored horses) will be grey.

You cannot tell by looking at grey horses which ones are GG and which ones are Gg. There is a genetic test, I think, but that's for people with more money than me.

Bird, since he was born chestnut and went grey, has the ee recessive that makes chestnut possible. (Bay horses are EE or Ee with an AA or Aa modifier. Black horses are EE or Ee with an aa modifier. Chestnut horses are ee and it doesn't matter what A's they have because they Cannot Make Black due to the ee.)

With geldings this is not so interesting but we can have fun with Dead Baby Horse who was chestnut and was going to stay chestnut (not grey out) for as long as she lived which turned out to be a little less than seven months. *sigh*

Her mom Nick was a bay horse, so Nick had, at a minimum, Ex Ax. That much we can tell from looking at her.

The stallion was grey (white by the time we saw him) and I have no idea of his foal coat color. All we know from looking at him is Gx.

BUT because Dead Baby Horse was chestnut red and would have stayed that way forever, we can INFER that (a) Nick was Ee Ax and (b) stallion was Gg eX because to get a chestnut red baby horse you have to have e from both parents and dead baby horse had to have gg in order to not-be-grey so she had to get a small g from her sire even though he himself was grey.

Further, Nick's parents were a Bay Mare (Ara Bay Abruka) and a grey stallion (Four Oaks Jerez) who was born chestnut so that's of a certainty where she got the Ee from. E from Ara Bay Abruka, e from Jerez. Jerez had several colored foals (Nick, who was bay, Taku, who is bay, and Cuervo, who is chestnut) so he was definitely Gg as well.

[crockpotcauldron]

Horse genetics are so cool!