🌟 [ equine coat genetics ] 🌟

[ghost queen.]

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equine coat color calculator
guide to horse colors/patterns
in-depth coat genetics
the appaloosa project

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list of genes
base coats
patterns and others
extras

[ghost queen.]

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extension gene (red/black factor) - base pigment of the coat color

E/E, E/e - black
e/e - red

agouti gene - controls the distribution of black pigment *has no factor on red pigmentation

A/A, A/a - bay
a/a - black

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champagne - lightens coat by diluting pigmentation *can be identified by pinkish freckled or mottled skin

Ch/Ch - dominant ; will pass to all foals
n/Ch - dominant ; will pass to 50% of foals

cream - affects both red and black pigmentation

n/Cr - single dilution
Cr/Cr - double dilution

dun - affects both red and black pigmentation *lightened coat and primitive markings

D/D - homozygous ; pass to all foals
D/d - heterozygous ; pass to 50% of foals

pearl - recessive gene that will only affect the coat if: two (2) copies of the gene exist; the cream gene is present

Prl/Prl, prl/prl - homozygous ; coat is diluted regardless of the presence of cream gene *pass to all foals
n/Prl - heterozygous ; no change to coat unless in the presence of cream gene *pass to ~50% of all foals

silver - dominant gene that affects only black pigmentation

Z/Z - homozygous ; black coat turns chocolate, bay coat lightens lower legs, mane and tail turn flaxen
n/Z - heterozygous ; same as above

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flaxen - recessive gene, only affects red pigmentation

f/f - flaxen
f/F - not flaxen

sooty/smutty - black or dark hairs mix in with the horse's base coat, darkening it in forms of, but not limited to, primitive markings, smudges, patches, striping, spots, or dappling

STY/STY, STY/sty - sooty

roan - white hairs mix in with the horse's base coat, lightening the coat the head, legs, mane and tail are usually solid or barely lightened

R/R, R/r - roan

rabicano - roaning that is limited to a specific area, usually centered around the flank and dispersing outwards

Rb/Rb, Rb/rb - rabicano

gray - dominant gene that causes the progressive silvering of the base coat, does not affect skin or eye color

G/G, G/g - gray

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leopard complex - the "on-switch" for appaloosa patterning; interacts with patn1 complex to produce appaloosa pattern on coat

Lp/Lp - homozygous ; will pass to all foals
Lp/lp - heterozygous ; will pass to 50% of foals

pattern one (1) complex - interacts with leopard complex to produce appaloosa pattern on coat

PATN1/PATN1 - homozygous ; will pass to all foals
PATN1/patn1 - heterozygous ; will pass to 50% of foals

dominant white - white coat, unpigmented pink skin

W/W, W/w - dominant white

sabino one (1) - ranges from pure white to broken patches

Sb/Sb - homozygous, pure white
Sb/sb - heterzygous, broken white patches

splash - large blaze, extended white markings on legs, variable white spotting on belly, pink skin and usually has blue eyes

Spl/Spl, Spl/spl - splash

tobiano - white over base coat

T/T - homozygous ; will pass to all foals
T/t - heterozygous ; will pass to 50% of foals

frame overo - white over base coat

O/O - lethal white ; happens when you breed two (2) frame overos together
O/o - frame overo

[ghost queen.]

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red - ee / AA, Aa, or aa

basic chestnut, sorrel, liver chestnut, red chestnut
black - EE or Ee / aa

bay or brown - EE or Ee / AA or Aa

mahogany bay, wild bay, dark bay, copper bay
*seal bay/brown is usually shown with At/at instead of A/a

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amber champagne - bay + n or Ch / Ch

example genotype

Ee/AA/ChCh
gold champagne - red + n or Ch / Ch

example genotype

ee/aa/nCh
classic champagne - black + n or Ch / Ch

example genotype

EE/aa/ChCh
sable champagne - seal bay or brown + n or Ch / Ch

example genotype

Ee/AtAt/nCh

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palomino - red + n / Cr

example genotype

ee/aa/nCr
cremello - red + Cr / Cr

example genotype

ee/AA/CrCr
buckskin - bay + n / Cr

example genotype

EE/Aa/nCr
perlino - bay + Cr / Cr

example genotype

Ee/AA/CrCr
smoky black - black + n / Cr

example genotype

Ee/aa/nCr
smoky cream - black + Cr / Cr

example genotype

EE/aa/CrCr
amber cream champagne - amber champagne + n / Cr

example genotype

Ee/AA/nCr/ChCh
gold cream champagne - gold champagne + n or Cr / Cr

example genotype

ee/aa/CrCr/nCh
classic cream champagne classic champagne + n or Cr / Cr

example genotype

EE/aa/nCr/ChCh
ivory champagne - amber champagne + Cr / Cr

example genotype

ee/aa/CrCr/nCh
sable cream champagne - sable champagne + n or Cr / Cr

example genotype

ee/aa/CrCr/nCh

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red dun - red + D / D or d

example genotype

ee/AA/Dd
grullo/a - black + D / D or d

example genotype

Ee/aa/DD
zebra dun - bay + D / D or d

example genotype

EE/Aa/Dd
dunalino - palomino + D / D or d

example genotype

ee/aa/nCr/Dd
dunskin - buckskin + D / D or d

example genotype

EE/Aa/nCr/DD
smoky grullo/a - smoky black + D / D or d

example genotype

Ee/aa/nCr/DD
sable or lilac dun - sable champagne + D / D or d

example genotype

Ee/AtAt/nCh/Dd
wolf dun - seal bay/brown + D / D or d

example genotype

EE/AtAt/Dd

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amber pearl - amber champagne + prlprl

example genotype

Ee/AA/ChCh/prlprl
gold pearl - red + prlprl

example genotype

ee/aa/nCh/prlprl
classic pearl - black + prlprl

example genotype

EE/aa/ChCh/prlprl
sable pearl - seal bay/brown + prlprl

example genotype

Ee/AtAt/nCh/prlprl
ivory pearl - ivory champagne with Cr / prl instead of Cr / Cr

example genotype

ee/aa/Crprl/nCh

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silver dapple (black) - black + n or Z / Z

example genotype

EE/aa/ZZ
blue taffy - seal bay/brown + n or Z / Z

example genotype

Ee/AtAt/nZ

[ghost queen.]

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leopard - base coat + Lplp / PATN1 or patn1

near leopard - leopard in progress ; see leopard above

semi leopard - leopard in progress ; see leopard above

fewspot - base coat + LpLp / PATN1 or patn1

spotted blanket - base coat + Lplp

snowcap - base coat + LpLp

frosted - minimal snowcap or spotted blanket ; see snowcap or spotted blanket above

varnish roan - base coat + Lp / Lp or lp

snowflake - base coat + Lp / Lp or lp

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tobiano - base coat + T / T or t

frame overo - base coat + Oo

tovero - base coat + tobiano + Oo

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dominant white - base coat + W / W or w

sabino white - base coat + SbSb

sabino - base coat + Sbsb

pintaloosa - base coat + paint + appaloosa

roan - base coat + R / R or r

rabicano - base coat + Rb / Rb or rb

sooty/smutty - base coat + STY / STY or sty

flaxen - red base coat + ff

gray - base coat + G / G or g

[ghost queen.]

extra space

[ghost queen.]

posting is now open! if something is missing or wrong please pm me or post on here! i'm not an expert on genes but i am progressively learning genetics at the moment so any help is more than welcome. i hope this comes in handy for all of you guys ^^

[Hime]

Sorry, I'm kinda horse color genetics nerd and nit picky....
Deviantart, not a good place to source out color genetics stuff... Shade terms are subjective and should not be used when talking about genetics. Not to mentions shade of the horse can change due multiple external things, like feeding and weather. There are so many little mistakes in that chart I'm not even gonna go there. Yes, it might give general idea of what the different colors look like, but it's also not accurate since real life and drawings are not the same. For example in real life it's pretty much impossible to tell the double cream dilutes appart from each other.

One Cream allele alone does not affect black pigment (unless there's silver also present). Pearl is in same locus as cream, so that might be good to mention somewhere.
There's 3 alleles in Dun locus; Dun(D), non-dun1(nd1) and non-dun2(nd2). Dun is the one we generally call dun. Non-dun 1 causes primitive markings and in some cases when homozygous slight body dilution, but no where near as much as actual dun. Nd1 is found even in breeds that do not have actual dun, so it's very widely spread. Non-dun2 is the 'plain/normal' coloring.
There is no known gene for sooty, flaxen or rabicano nor is it known/confirmed how they are herited. The virtual horse world simply has made up genes for them. Pangare is also in that category.

Dominant white is kinda out dated term. It's called white pattern these days and there are 23 identified types out there, plus bunch not yet researched. Most W-patterns are breed and line specific (sabino-like coloring in arabs and TBs for example are identified W-patterns). Except W20, which is dubbed as white booster gene and is found in many breeds.
Splash and sabino are both incomplete dominant patterns (as is frame, but since homozygous frames will not survive...). Meaning one copy will cause some white markings, but two copies(homozygous) willl cause larger white areas. There are also 4 types of splash identified. Splash 1 is the most common and wide spread one. 2 and 3 are QH/Paint family specific mutations and 4 has been found in Appaloosa.

Drop the At, it's not a allele in agouti so it should not be used, even if talking about browns. Brown as far as we know has the same base color genetics as bay, so E- A-. So phenotypically brown horse is genotypically same as bay, as far as we know.
EE/Ee shouldn't really be labeled as black as it's then agouti that determines if the horse is bay or black. It's simply dominant extension that allows black pigment to be present, but then agouti has to tell that black pigment where to go.

Under gold cream champagne and sable cream you put the genetics as nCh+CrCr, which would be champagne plus double cream, which would look like double cream and would be called ivory cream, and base color be not possible to tell. Champagne creams are -Ch + nCr. If you must use Sable cream it should also be genotype E- A-, not ee aa.
Zebra dun is not color name. Correct name is bay dun. Black+dun is either called grulla or blue dun, not grullo (which I know has been used, but what I've seen in color related chatter the use is discouraged). Wolf dun is not a proper color name either, nor is sable or lilac dun.
You might want to double check the pearl example section. And instead of pairing it with champagne as example, I'd rather have it stand alone and with cream as that is the way it commonly pops up, not to mention to whole sharing a locus and interacting together part.
Term Taffy should really not be used... Yes, it may refer to silver, but to both bay and black based, and sometimes no additional definition is used so it just causes confusion. So for basic silver correct naming would be silver black and silver bay.

Tovero can actually mean tobiano+any other pinto pattern, not just tobiano+frame. So tovero could be tobiano+splash, toabino+frame+splash, tobiano+sabino etc. Term overo can be and is used of any pinto pattern that is not tobiano.

[aeroz]

omG I love this thread already. i'm majoring in animal science with a minor in equine sci and genetics are by far my favorite thing. I have some ideas to kick off the group hehe c:<

[Mycorrhizae]

So it's been a while since I've formally studied genetics, so I might be a bit behind here. But is the use of n (as in n/Cr) a newer thing? I've never seen that before. And if an animal had two of the recessive alleles and for some reason you wanted to write it out, would you write out nn? In the past I've seen crcr to show that there was no cream allele or the use of plus signs.

pearl - recessive gene that will only affect the coat if: two (2) copies of the gene exist; the cream gene is present
Prl/Prl, prl/prl - homozygous ; coat is diluted regardless of the presence of cream gene *pass to all foals
n/Prl - heterozygous ; no change to coat unless in the presence of cream gene *pass to ~50% of all foals

A couple of things here. Since pearl is recessive, shouldn't prl/prl be the one that dilutes the coat? And n/prl be the one that dilutes if there's a cream allele. And the way it's written, it looks like being homozygous dominant or recessive will both give a dilution instead of just two prl alleles.

[Hime]

So it's been a while since I've formally studied genetics, so I might be a bit behind here. But is the use of n (as in n/Cr) a newer thing? I've never seen that before. And if an animal had two of the recessive alleles and for some reason you wanted to write it out, would you write out nn? In the past I've seen crcr to show that there was no cream allele or the use of plus signs.

Use of n to mark horse not having certain mutation is pretty common when it comes to genetic testing results, I don't think it's really a new thing either. Though it can probably vary a little with each lab and what is tested. And yes, when horse doesn't have the mutation you write it out as nn, unless it's extension or agouti with are always written out with lower or upper case letters. But things like dilutions and patterns are usually n is used if horse doesn't have the tested gene. So for example frame negative horse could marked in test papers as nn while positive would be nO. But you are correct that lower case letters of the allele/locus is also correct way to mark dominant and recessive genes. The cream/pearl locus and alleles are tricky when it comes to using lower/upper case letters and I think I've seen at least three ways to mark the cream and non-cream alleles... So hence for person not understanding how the alleles should be marked correctly, it's usually more simple to use n when the horse has the 'normal' copy of certain allele. For example as pearl is recessive, it should be written as lower case letters, so person not knowing this might think prl/prl (or prlprl) in test results means horse has no pearl, even though it actually has two.

pearl - recessive gene that will only affect the coat if: two (2) copies of the gene exist; the cream gene is present
Prl/Prl, prl/prl - homozygous ; coat is diluted regardless of the presence of cream gene *pass to all foals
n/Prl - heterozygous ; no change to coat unless in the presence of cream gene *pass to ~50% of all foals

A couple of things here. Since pearl is recessive, shouldn't prl/prl be the one that dilutes the coat? And n/prl be the one that dilutes if there's a cream allele. And the way it's written, it looks like being homozygous dominant or recessive will both give a dilution instead of just two prl alleles.

Yup, it would be better if there only either Prl/Prl or prl/prl used for homozygous. Of which the later is academically correct, but when it comes to testing the first is usually used... So that's probably the dilemma here.

I'm also going to point out also that prl/prl horse can't have cream, so the "regardless of presence of cream"-is not needed as it physically can not happen. The heterozygous explanation is technically correct, but since cream and pearl are in same locus the genotype of het pearl that has cream(=shows dilution) is Cr/prl.