Horse Color Genetics: Cream

Review: E = black, A=bay, G=gray.  The next color gene is the cream gene. This gene does a lot of different things, depending on whether the horse inherits one or two of this gene. This fact is called "incomplete dominant", which means that the cream gene will effect any color, but what it will do depends on whether the horse is homozygous cream or heterozygous cream. Cream creates palomino, cremello, perlino, smoky black, smoky cream, and buckskin, depending on different combinations. I will start with palomino because it is the easiest to understand.

A palomino is a chestnut horse with one cream gene. The cream gene dilutes the chestnut into a lighter color. But for a palomino to happen, it has to have inherited only one cream gene (heterozygous; heterozygous means there is only one dominant in that particular gene). If it inherits two cream genes, chestnut is diluted even further to produce cremello. Cremello looks like an albino, but it is different. Cremello is a cream color with blue eyes.

Backing back up to the palomino; palomino is an easy horse to breed. If you breed a Cremello horse (cremello's have two dominant cream genes) with a chestnut (think blank slate), you end up with a horse that inherits one dominant cream gene from the cremello parent. Therefore making palomino.

So the horse above's genetic code would be: ee, a?, CRcr. No black, but it could possibly carry one or two bay genes but you wouldn't know because there is no black to push out. Now if it was like this, ee, a?, CRCR, then the horse would look like this:

Looks an awful lot like an albino, right? But it has blue eyes(this indicates there is pigment in the eyes; albino animals lack any pigment whatsoever) and the coat color is more cream, not white. If you compare this horse to the gray horse below, the gray looks even more white than the cremello. I know this is a gray because of the dark skin around the muzzle.

Perlino is another color that is very similar to cremello, and you may not be able to tell them apart. Again, perlino requires two dominant cream genes, but also a black gene and a bay gene. These are more rare, because you have to have that combination. Usually perlino's have slightly darker manes and tails, but they will have blue eyes like a cremello. Cremello's, perlino's, and smoky creams are all born with this color. The horse below is a more obvious perlino:

Smoky black and smoky cream are rather rare, simply because most people may or may not know that they have it. Smoky black is a black horse (at least one black, or E gene), that has only one dominant cream gene (I'll call it C from now on). There is barely any difference between black and smoky black, other than maybe the tiniest lightening. The horse below also carries a silver gene that lightens its mane and tail, so if you could ignore that for now, please do. It almost looks more like a dark bay, and the lighting is kind of weird, but you get the idea.

Smoky cream is a horse with at least one dominant E gene (black) and two dominant C genes. If it had only one C gene it would be smoky black; if it had no dominant E genes then it would be cremello. The horse below is advertised as smoky cream. It looks the same as cremello and perlino, though! You would really need to have your horse genetically tested to really be able to determine. It also looks slightly pregnant, or has been pregnant....

The last color C gene can make is buckskin. Buckskin is also a complicated color, but I will do my best. To make a buckskin, there must be at least one dominant E gene, at least one dominant A gene, and only one dominant C gene. If there are two dominant C genes, then it is perlino. There could be two dominant E genes or two dominant A genes, but there has to be only one cream gene.
Another thing you must understand is the difference between buckskin and dun. Genetically, they are completely different, but they look very similar. Buckskin is a golden color with a black mane and tail (remember, the A gene pushes existing black away to the edges), while dun horses can be almost any color with certain markings. Dun is not any particular color, but dun and buckskin are often mistaken for one another.

People who are familiar with horses will know what I mean when I say that duns always have a very clear dorsal stripe and sometimes striping on the legs, like a zebra. The horse above is a buckskin because there is no dorsal stripe. Think Spirit; he has a black stripe along his back. An example of what the horse above's genetic code could be: Ee, AA, Cc. Or EE, AA, Cc. Or Ee, Aa, Cc. Or EE, Aa, Cc. get the idea? It could never be ee, aa, Cc. That makes palomino; it has to have at least one E and one A.

Horse Color Genetics: Gray

So now you have the basics down! Review: E = black, A=bay.
If all horses are really chestnut with different colors added on, then how do you explain white horses?
For white horses, it is important to understand that white horses are not really white at all. When people refer to 'gray' horses, this usually means a horse that looks white, but in fact their skin is a different color.
Gray horses are born a different color (usually dark bay or black), but inherit a gene from one of their parents that causes them to turn white (or the technical term is gray) as they get older. The gray gene is a dominant one, meaning that if any horse is  heterozygous or homozygous dominant (one or both genes being dominant) it will effect any color horse the same way.
Truly white horses are really, really rare and actually are born white. That is a different topic, but horses born pure white are called 'dominant white'.
The symbol for gray is G; any color horse who inherits either one or two of these genes will turn white, no matter the color. Here is a gray horse:

Again, even with grays, the trait can be either homozygous or heterozygous. If they are heterozygous, then their foal may or may not turn gray with age, there isn't really any way to tell right away unless you test them genetically.
Some gray horses don't turn white all the way; some remain in a state in-between. This color is referred to as 'dapple gray'. It is a color, but they still carry the gray gene. Their genetic code is still the same, or they may still turn lighter, or they could stay like this forever. The amount of graying cannot be determined.

Here is an example of a gray horse's color code: Ee, aa, GG (I'm just making this one up). This horse was born black (I know it was black and not bay because both of the a's are recessive), but will most certainly gray in time because it inherited dominant gray genes. And because this horse is homozygous gray, it's children will most certainly gray as well. You only need one dominant gene for the gray effect to happen. Another code is Ee, AA, Gg. This horse was a bay, but will gray in time. You see? Gray is a more simple concept to understand compared to some of the others.
Sometimes gray horses that turn pretty light will develop little tiny flecks that look like freckles. They can be all over the body, fairly large flecks, or in just one area. This is called 'flea bitten gray'. It is not a genetic thing that can be inherited, it just happens. The color of the flecks depends on what color they were before they turned gray. Black horses turned gray that develop flecks will probably have grayish flecks, while the horse below might have been chestnut or bay because they are brown.

Horse Color Genetics: Base Coat Colors

All horse colors are derived from red (chestnut/sorrel). Surprised? It is really that simple. All horses either have dominant or recessive of these two colors. The status of what color they are and which are domiannt or recessive is shown with what I call a color genome sequence. The length of this sequence can be long or short, depending on how simple the color is.
In a horse that is red, all the color genes in it are recessive. Red is really the base to all coat colors, even black. Red is not really a color gene, every single horse has it. To define red, any redish or brown horse with the same color mane, or slightly darker or lighter. Red is the same as chestnut and sorrel in the genetics world.
If you can pretend that for a minute that horses are buckets of paint, please do. A red horse is like a white bucket of paint. A black gene can come in and completely change the color, diluting the color until it is gray.
Keeping in mind that red is the base for every color, how does a black horse get black? If every horse is red, a black horse inherited a dominant black gene. This made it black. It doesn't matter whether it got two dominant black genes or one, it will still be black.
Here is a red horse; a red horse has recessive genes for every other color except maybe for bay (I'll get to that in a minute).

Because every horse is really a form of red, there is not code for red; every horse has a small code for what it's genetic color is (what it can pass on, whether each color is homozygous or heterozygous, etc.). Some more complicated color patterns are a little longer, but no matter the color, the amount of black is always shown.
Black is represented with an E. Capitol E is dominant, lowercase e is recessive. If a horse's color code is ee, then it is not black. Simple. The chestnut horse above is ee, I can tell by looking at it. If a horse is Ee or EE, then it will be black. The horse below looks like a Fresian, so it is probably EE. All Fresians are black, which you can conclude that all Fresians are dominant homozygous (so you know that two black horses make a black).

If the black horse above had not received any dominant genes (you could think of dominant and recessive like positive or negative), then it would be chestnut.

Now for a more complicated color! Is your brain hurting yet?
Bay is another base coat. It is a red horse with a black mane and tail, and black points. When I say points, it basically means the outermost edges (mane, tail, legs, the tips of the ears).

So genetically, how does this work out?

This is another gene. Remember, every horse is red until you do something to it. The bay is a red horse who has inherited either one or two black genes (it doesn't matter whether there is one or two). But it can't only be black genes, because then it would be black! A bay horse also inherits one or two bay genes (again, it doesn't matter). This pushes the black to the outermost edges.

Here is where it gets even more confusing. Some red horses carry one or two bay genes inside them and you wouldn't know, but if there is no black to push out then it won't be apparent from the outside. The representation for the bay gene is A. AA homozygous dominant, Aa heterozygous, and aa for homozygous recessive. 

Black is a dominant gene; this means that if they have only one dominant E gene, it will take effect. However, bay is not, because it is incomplete by itself. 

*As a side note, usually when horse breeders refer to their homozygous stallion, they are advertising the dominant gene, not the recessive. They do that because people like to know what they are getting :).

Horse Color Genetics: The Basics

I have done a ton of research on genetics recently (sort of all in one day; I had the urge to know all at once). I got started because breeding was on my mind. I have thought about breeding my horse Chocolate. There is a great website where you can type in the color of two different horses, and it will give you the different color combinations it will make. That was really fun to play around with.

I'm not really sure what made me interested in the science behind the color, but all of a sudden I really, really wanted to know why Chocolate was solid black, and not spotted like both of her parents.

A great way to explain how genetics work is by using flowers. This is not my own example, I read this somewhere, but I will paraphrase it. Pretending flowers can breed (which they obviously can not), say you bred a red flower with a blue flower. Each flower has two genes in it. The red has two red genes, and the blue has two blue genes. The resulting flower needs one from each, one red gene and one blue gene. Mixed together, it makes purple! Because there are now two genes inside of it, that does not mean that is has two purple genes, the genes are still red and blue. Now, if that purple flower bred with a red flower, the genes from the purple flower still have to split. This means that the 'baby flower' is going to inherit one red gene from the red flower, but it could inherit a red or a blue gene from the purple flower. Make sense? The result is either a red flower or a purple flower. 

Still using the flower example, the first two flowers were red and blue. We knew that both flowers had two of the same color gene. In horses, this is called homozygous; it means that we know exactly what will be inherited by resulting foals. If the flower had one gene of each, like the purple flower, and it had to pass on only one of the genes, this is called heterozygous. Homozygous means both genes for a certain color are dominant or recessive. 

Dominant and recessive is basically saying whether or not your horse has something. If a horse is dominant homozygous black, or EE, that horse is black, and we know that any foals, regardless of the other parent, will receive one dominant black gene. If a horse is heterozygous black, or Ee, that horse is still black (they only need one dominant gene to make it black), and it means the resulting foal may or may not receive that black gene. Remember, each gene has to split, so if it got the E part (the dominant gene) then it would be black, but if it got e (recessive), then it won't be black unless it got a black gene from the other parent.  And lastly, if a horse is recessive homozygous black,or ee, it means we know that the foal will not receive any black from that parent.

Enchanted, by Alethea Kontis

Really the only reason we checked this out was because it was narrated by Katherine Kellgren. I personally wouldn't have checked it out because of the description, but Mom was sure it would be 'cute'.

A girl (Sunday) is the 7th 7th, or the 7th daughter of a 7th daughter. And as the poem goes, "Sunday's child is blithe and bonny and good and gay". Sunday, as it seems, is doomed to a happy life, whether she likes it or not.
One day, while waltzing through the woods, she happens upon a talking frog. Well, they get to talking, and.....you can probably figure out the rest. Of course he is a prince! She happens to not be so bright (she does know that he was a human turned into a frog, but how he got like that makes absolutely no sense) and wishes that he was human again. Of course. And after one meeting, Sunday decides that she is in love with him.
Katherine Kellgren's narrating is, of course, flawless, but she did make 'Grumble' the frog sound rather old when he was supposed to be a young prince.
One thing I did appreciate about this book was the bits of old fairy tales spun in.  A not-particularly-spoiler-example is when her brother goes to the market to sell the cow. Instead of selling the cow, he trades the beast for 5 magic beans.
Basically.....I would never recommend this book. While all the bits with her sister's was entertaining, it was the rest that was completely and utterly boring. Way too much romance, and it was a selfish romance.
When Sunday met Grumble, she loved him because he listened to her. She could tell stories to him and he would listen, which made her happy because she could dump her woefully dull life on him. In fact, she had nothing to complain about. And why did the frog love her? Still no clue. Other than he knew that she loved him, and that was enough to love her back.
I still can't figure out how the author thought this was a good idea. THERE WAS NO IDEA! Nothing really happened until the end, when the tiniest streak of evil appeared and there was actually conflict.
Maybe that is my problem with the story, is there was no conflict. Maybe if Sunday had a deep dark secret that the frog could never know, or if a troll had come barging through the house.
I was bothered that I knew the author loved her characters too much to hurt them. I knew that there was no way anyone would die. I have authors that love their characters too much to have anything tragic happen. Frankly I wished the Prince had died.