the foal would be putting a Dun Roan mare with a Grey stallion?

I guess that may depend if the grey stallion was the product of a grey mare and grey stallion, as if that was the case, the foal will be grey! Other than that, I wouldnt have a clue

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My understanding is that with a grey parent the foal has a 50% chance of being grey, regardless of what colour its grandparents were. If it's not grey, then the colour will depend on what colour the stallion was before it went grey.


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Depends on a lot! Partly whether the 'dun roan' is really a dun roan, or if it's a buckskin roan. If the grey parent is homozygous for grey, foal will end up grey. What colour is the basecoat of the 'dun roan' -black, bay, brown or chestnut? And what colour was they grey parent's foal coat?

[ typo!]

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Is the actual foal coat really significant Pippa? My Luna looks black at the moment but she will be grey eventually. However, her passport says 'foal colour chestnut' and as a yearling just losing her winter coat I had thought she might be bay roan...



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well what about this mare






to this stallion???







Any guesses gratefully received, or will i have to be satisfied with a black foal??

Our mare's mother was Dun and her father was Dark bay. The stallions mother was Grey and his father was Dark Bay. This is our mare Matley Morning Mist.

In that case, 50% chance of grey (sire is heterozygous for grey).



I's also say that your mare is a buckskin not dun :ducksforcover: In which case she'd have 50% chance of passing that on. So, if not grey then probably bay or buckskin.

Thanks Michelle, but what could the other 50% be do you think?

Do you know what colour the dad is under the grey? Or, failing that the colour of the sire's parents?

OK, my best guess without knowing the grand dam's base colour is:

50% grey
25% buckskin
25% bay (there might be a possiblity of black in here too)

It's going to be pretty either way

the sires mother was Grey and the father was bay.

Do you know what she was under the grey though? What ever it's going to be pretty much as my last post. Grey is something that happens to a colour, not a colour itself.

No i don't know what colour was under the grey. But his half brother is Friday and he was from the same grey mare, so it could be bay? Someone told me i'd get a roan??

Actually forget that. Its a bit pointless me guessing without know what lies behind the greys, not to mention not knowing if the bays are heterogynous or homozygous for agouti (the gene that causes bay), and also if there is chestnut hidden in there. Then add to that Anyas cream gene (that makes her buckskin) and roan too - you have loads of possibilities! All you can say for certain is that what ever colour foal you get there is there is a 50% chance greying out.

Thanks for that. Well maybe it will be grey cause we haven't got one of those... ha ha!

But where does the roan come in? As I understand it, roan is a dominant gene so can't be hidden. If your mare is out of a dun mare by a bay stallion then she can't be roan?


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Classic roan is dominant and always shows the classic pattern. Sabino and rabicano will always 'touch' somewhere on the coat, and could therefore also be called dominant (technically), but sabino may throw just the odd pointed-top, speckly-edge white sock, and rabicano can sometimes throw no more than a few scattered white hairs!

Check out my Horse Colours and Markings page at http://www.seaspiritoftheforest.co.uk/equine/HorseColoursAndMarkings.html for a bit more info on colours and inheritance.

Grey is always dominant; black is dominant over chestnut (so a chestnut to chestnut mating will always give you a chestnut); agouti is dominant over non-agouti (so a black horse will never have an agouti gene), and Agouti-bay and Agouti-seal are co-dominant. If the father was dark bay, then he doesn't have the grey gene at all, despite what his parents were, so can't pass it on. The 'dun' in the picture is definitely a buckskin, not a dun (shows sooty dappling in the body coat - dun suppresses sooty).

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Wow it does get complicated! Our dark (almost brown) bay mare is registered by her breeder as 'bay grey' because her dam is grey and her grandsire maternal is grey, but so far she shows no sign of turning although I did get told of a roan ho didn't 'turn' until he was 7. Our breeder hedged her bets somewhat! So far she has had 3 fillies from the dam and they are all dark bay.

You really can't say.

We had a Black Welsh Section D stallion who covered a Grey mare when he was a yearling.

The foal was chestnut, with 4 long stockings a blaze and a few splashes, if you saw him on a dark night you would think he was a cow!

Palmino mare and a grey stallion (both welsh section a's)
had a chestnut colt.

In both the above instances both parents were carrying chestnut gene(s) which they passed on.







Chestnut is recessive - you need two copies to actually 'be' chestnut. A black or bay pony can hide a chestnut gene - it's there but you don't see it over the dominant black gene (or in the case of bay, black plus the agouti gene which fades black to brown except on the points, legs, mane and tail which remain black).







A palomino is just a chestnut with one copy of the dilute cream gene (a buckskin is a bay with one copy of the dilute cream gene). A chestnut always passes on the chestnut gene, but to have got your chestnut foal the grey stallion must have passed one on too.







The black welsh D must also have had a hidden chestnut gene which he passed on and so must have the grey mare.

Our Grey mae has had foals to a chestnut stallion and always threw grey, and foals to dark bay stallion and threw grey!!

Our bright bay mare had mostly chestnuts & a bay to the chestnut stallion and bay to the bay stallion.

Grey is my fav! As long as healthy and stunning!!! don't care about colour!

It sounds as though your grey mare is very likely to be homozygous for grey (i.e. has two copies of the grey gene) in which case she will always throw greys.

Your bright bay mare obviously has a chestnut gene; the bay stallion may be 'hiding' a chestnut gene, so there's no guarantee that that mating would always produce bays.

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The red/white mare to (probably) black stallion:

Depends whether the mare is heterozygous or homozygous for the tobiano. If heterozygous, 50% chance of a coloured foal. If homozygous, foal will be coloured.

Depends whether the black (?) stallion has a hidden chestnut gene. If so, 50% chance of red-based coat. If not, 0% chance of red-based coat.

Depends whether the chestnut is hiding one or two agouti genes. If not, no chance of bay-based or brown-based. If one agouti gene, depends whether foal is black based - if so, 50% chance of bay-based or brown-based foal. If two agouti genes, and foal is black-based, then 100% probability of bay-based or brown-based coat.

If the black is actually a smoky black (with a cream gene), then 50% chance of a cream-dilute coat.

An awful lot of possibilities there! So: black, bay, brown, chestnut, palomino, buckskin, smoky black, with or without white. Not a chance of a dun, though - no dun gene.

Then you have to look at whether the red/white mare has any of the roaning genes - classic, sabino or rabicano. If so, add all those possible combinations in, too!

She may be 'hiding' silver (which doesn't express on chestnut, but is present in the gene pool of Shetlands and miniatures), in which case, add all the silver variants to the black-based options.

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Thanks for that Pippa.... well, just guess we'll have to wait and see. I will post a piccy of baby once it is here. I am so hopeing for an unusual coloured, i am getting a bit bored with seeing black shetties even worse, i am starting to not be able to tell them apart!!! :0

See if you can introduce dun and silver genes into your breeding stock from somewhere. Then you are really going to have the option on some interesting colours.

One of my favourite colours is the silver blue dun - seen here in an Icelandic (dun and silver genes on a black basecoat).

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...Boldly going where no werewolf has gone before...

Caroline - does your mare have a dorsal stripe? From the shade of chestnut she could also be a dun.. but hard to tell unless she has a dorsal stripe..

The silver gene has never been recorded with shetlands... its one of those colours that they haven't put a name on (like buckskin on my last look.. they were still down as dilute bays.. lol)

Its known about in the miniature horse world... along with a wide range of other colours that i still don't understand the genetics off! lol




RIP Halo - 1998 - 2006. Miss you always.

My little horrors darlings.

I'm fascinated by the mushroom colour! Have had some email discussion with some 'proper' genetics people on this one, but no-one's really sussed it yet. It seems to occur in the same bloodlines as fading black (which has also not been sussed yet). Can't wait for the jury to come back on that one. It may be a variant of sooty - maybe some kind of 'fading sooty' or some other not-identified dilution gene acting on normal sooty.

Time will tell!

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No Jodie she doesn't have a dorsal stripe. She used to be a 'palamino' and white but as she has got older she has gone to a more 'chestnut' and white. I know the stallion has got coloured in his parents, but, as Jodie would probably back me up on, he is a real 'Black' pony. He produced his last foal last year and that was a bay filly from a bay mare.

I find it quite fun just to wait and see, i have now purchased a grey stallion and a bay and white stallion, so i am looking forward to trying a few of those combinations too.

Well she doesn't look like a palomino.... but looks doesn't mean anything much.. as palli can be so many different shades! If you wanted to know 100% if she was palomino you could test her for the cream gene...

Yep i'd say your boy was true black from looks... lol And even if he was hiding some other gene i still think he's rather nice! lol

You could get some interesting colours there Caroline... grey isn't a colour i like much... as i want to breed broken colours and dilutes so don't want that coat colour disappearing! lol (that's not to say i don't have a grey mare as she ticks all the other boxes) but i do love a dappled and iron grey...


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My little horrors darlings.

I know what you mean Jodie, she does seem to be getting darker the older she gets. She had a Lovely Piebald filly 2 years ago when she went to a bay and white stallion, so, fingers crossed xxxx

The grey boy i have got is a real 'iron grey' at the moment, but his sire 'Zennor Snowman' is a almost 'white' have a look on the Zennor website, so, think he will probably go a white/grey eventually, but, he will be a real nice colour to show for the next few years.

Has she ever thrown a dun foal?  I ask, as she does look very similar to one of our mares, who is a chestnut dun.  Does she have any of her pally/chestnut colouring over the dorsal?

Sometimes, a dun can hide from view, if you understand me, if it's coloured.  If they're coloured, they don't have a dorsal stripe on the white bits, only the other bits.  So if her white covers her whole dorsal area, she could well be dun, but just be in disguise!  Lol!

No Varkie, she has only ever had the one foal and that was the piebald. She has not got a dorsal stripe (i think), the colour and white both go over the middle in various areas and there is no indication of a stripe. She was def. a palamino and white when we bought her as a 2 year old, she has darkened up as she has got older, she is only 6 now so she will probably end up quite dark by the time she has finished.

Just out of interest Varkie, my other stallion, Eynhallow Blue Moon, has only produced one foal, it was Dun and that was to a dun mare.. is that normal, i thought Black would have been the dominent colour??

If you put a Dun & a non Dun pairing together, you generally have a 50% chance of a dun foal.  So foalie must have got the dun gene from mum.  Perfectly in line with genetic theory.  What colour dun was the foal?  Technically, a black stallion is capable of passing on black or chestnut, so not necessarily black is a definite outcome.

Don't know what colour dun it was, i just thought that black was dominent. So, does that mean that that there is a 50/50 chance of hello's foal being coloured then??

Dun gene on a black basecoat gives you a blue dun; looks like this:



Dun gene shows on any basecoat where it's not disguised by white hairs (i.e. greyed-out). It even shows on double-cream dilutes.

A chestnut base can be carrying one or two agouti genes, so can throw a bay, brown, or a dilute of either of these if there's a dilution gene such as dun in the mix, to a black stallion.

A golden dun can throw both the dun and agouti genes on in a mating with a black, agouti acts on black, turning it into bay or brown, depending which version of the agouti gene you have. If the golden dun has two agouti genes you will never get a black foal from it, as it will always pass agouti.

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Caroline - what colour is Hello?

In a coloured/non coloured pairing, there is a 50% chance of a coloured foal.  So if Hello is coloured, or if not, if the other pony in the pairing is coloured, you have at least a 50% chance of a coloured foal.

Varkie, Hello is the mare in the picture Varkie, but incase you missed it... here is another

Ah, yes.  I'd seen the pic, but I hadn't clicked that she was called Hello.

Yes, any foal she has, has at least a 50% chance of being coloured.  To a black stallion, she has a chance of a black, bay, chestnut, black coloured, bay coloured, chestnut coloured.  This is all assuming she is a chestnut, as she appears.  If she has an extra gene, that obviously could throw things up in the air.

If she is palomino, as you'd believed, her foal possibilities would also include smokey black, buckskin, palomino, smokey black coloured, buckskin coloured, palomino coloured.

I must admit, the colour of her mane is interesting - and I wonder if that's important in telling us what she is.  I'll go away & do a little looking up later.

I think her mane colour is standard flaxen; she could be homozygous for flaxen, with it being that pale. She does look as though she may have the pangare (mealy) gene in there as well, though it's hard to tell for sure with all that white!

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