Monday, December 8, 2014

Horse Color Genetics: Calculating Possible Outcomes

When determining possible outcomes for foals, almost everyone knows about the coat color calcuator, here. Lately, I've been practicing figuring the results without it, because I would like to know them off the top of my head.
To start, it's good to have a definite color genome because without it, the numbers are much more confusing. I'm still working on how to solve that.
Let's start with an easy one:

Ee aa + EE Aa

When starting on calculating, always work from left to right, and write it down with a pencil so you can erase the numbers to make them smaller as you get more detailed.
To solve the question, use common sense to know that the horse will always be black-based; the horse on the right is homozygous dominant for black.
So now the question: will the horse be black, or bay?
We know from the horse on the left that at least one agouti gene will be recessive. The other one is 50/50, so therefore, the outcome is 50% black, 50% bay. The possible genomes are EE aa, Ee aa, EE Aa, or Ee, Aa. The first two were for a black horse, the second two were for a bay. Even odds, making:

50% Black
50% Bay

Let's change it up:
Ee Aa + Ee Aa

Only look at the extension status to start with. The possible outcomes for just that are: EE, Ee, Ee, or ee. Why did I do Ee twice? Because you can take into account that the dominant gene could come from either one. You could change the second Ee to eE if it helps you remember which one comes from which.
Now, looking at those, 3/4 of those outcomes make a black or black-based horse. So we have:

75% black (we'll change that later once we find out about agouti)
25% red

Using the same technique as before, the possible outcomes for the agouti status would be the same: AA, Aa, aA, or aa. 3/4 makes a bay horse.
To apply this to the equation above, remember that the red status shouldn't change. That is solid; we are only applying this if the foal was black. So the real question is what is 3/4 of 75%?

Think back to math class; to figure this, multiply the 75 times 3, then divide by 4. That leaves you with 56.25; those are the final results for bay. But obviously 56.25 + 75 + 25 don't add up to 100; you now need to change the black outcome. Add up the red status plus bay, then subtract that number from 100 to get the final answer for black. That number is 18.75. Here are the final results:

56.25% Bay
25% Red
18.75% Black

Now if you add on more modifiers and dilute genes, the genetics aren't as hard as you think. Generally you just divide each number in two. For example, let's use what we have above but add in that one parent has one copy of the cream gene. Going back to the parents, their genome's now look like this:
Ee Aa Cc + Ee Aa cc (one parent is recessive for cream, and generally you wouldn't show it, but I put it in so you could see).

To calculate, first do all the above steps and you would come to the same conclusion as the above, but without the cream. Now that you've done those steps, you can add in cream. For just the cream status, the possible outcomes are: Cc, cc. Just those two. The first one has cream, the other doesn't. Because it's 50/50, all you have to do is individually cut each color in half and add in whatever that color would be with cream. Like this:

28.125% Bay
28.125% Buckskin
12.5% Red
12.5% Palomino
9.375% Black
9.375% Smoky Black

I used a calculator for those smaller numbers, but once you get a little more accustomed to doing these, there are a lot of repeating numbers such as 75, 50 25, 12.5, 37.5, you get the idea. If you compare these numbers to the online coat calculator, the only difference is that they round up on the small numbers to change 28.125 to 28.13 and 9.375 to 9.38.

1 comment:

  1. Black Titanium Wedding Band | Tatiana's Blog | TITANIA's Blog
    TITANIA's 2020 edge titanium Blog. The official trekz titanium Tatiana's titanium vs ceramic flat iron Blog. The official Tatiana's Blog. Tatiana's t fal titanium Blog. Tatiana's Blog. Tatiana's Blog. Tatiana's titanium damascus knives Blog. Tatiana's Blog. Tatiana's Blog.

    ReplyDelete