Fleabitten Grey?

[Shadow Scar]

Unsure if she is really a Fleabitten or normal Grey. She has nice spotting on her legs, yet nothing much in on the rest of her body.
Smokey Horizon

[Mlloftus]

Unsure if she is really a Fleabitten or normal Grey. She has nice spotting on her legs, yet nothing much in on the rest of her body.
Smokey Horizon

I would say yes

[Shadow Scar]

I've got another Grey mare here that seems to be showing Fleabitten pattern at only 4 years, but everywhere I've read says this should only happen after the greying process is finished.
Ghastly Lights (Grey)

[BlackOak2]

I've got another Grey mare here that seems to be showing Fleabitten pattern at only 4 years, but everywhere I've read says this should only happen after the greying process is finished.
Ghastly Lights (Grey)

Fleabites generally come in as a 'last process' to the graying... but that doesn't mean that they can't come in super early. Like many of the genes on HWO, they might have their own time-span that's handled separately from the main gene. And it does look like the fleabites are already coming in.

It is an interesting process. And quite the intriguing conclusion you have [stumbled?] upon.

[Shadow Scar]

Yeah I'd say stumbled upon would be quite accurate considering I was going for a non-fleabitten herd and ended up with only fleabitten greys. Does make me oddly curious if I could manage to breed more early bloomers. Thanks guys!

[BlackOak2]

Yeah I'd say stumbled upon would be quite accurate considering I was going for a non-fleabitten herd and ended up with only fleabitten greys. Does make me oddly curious if I could manage to breed more early bloomers. Thanks guys!

This is how many of us found projects... and have located some very unusual color occurrences!

Good Luck! If you come across some really unique outcome from this (not that this isn't already! ) let the community know!

[HorseCrazy275]

How do you breed a fleabitten?

[BlackOak2]

How do you breed a fleabitten?

You'll need to find a horse with the gray gene. AC arabians are usually the quickest to that goal (especially if you want to avoid a lot of other unknown genes). And there are fleabites on some AC arabians even at their 4 years age. Just look for the horses with a gray head or a graying body.
Gray is dominant, so you only need one of these to see it. Plus, all gray-carrying foals are born with an 'adult' coat, so it's also easy to see which horses are going to gray-out even as a newborn.

As far as getting fleabites themselves. Just favor the horses with fleabites in the patterns and in the year-stages you want them. If you want them to appear super early, then keep the foals that grow up with fleabites appearing earlier than the others.

For AC arabians, it could be as much as 50% or more that they'll fleabite out. Actually, having horses that remain gray and don't fleabite at all or to some, even minimal extent, eventually is extremely rare, so your chances are pretty good that a gray horse you breed to and obtain the foal from, will eventually fleabite at some point.

[Iris Rock Stables]

Unsure if she is really a Fleabitten or normal Grey. She has nice spotting on her legs, yet nothing much in on the rest of her body.
Smokey Horizon

I've kept this link on my front page of my farm viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2158

[HorseCrazy275]

How do you breed a fleabitten?

You'll need to find a horse with the gray gene. AC arabians are usually the quickest to that goal (especially if you want to avoid a lot of other unknown genes). And there are fleabites on some AC arabians even at their 4 years age. Just look for the horses with a gray head or a graying body.
Gray is dominant, so you only need one of these to see it. Plus, all gray-carrying foals are born with an 'adult' coat, so it's also easy to see which horses are going to gray-out even as a newborn.

As far as getting fleabites themselves. Just favor the horses with fleabites in the patterns and in the year-stages you want them. If you want them to appear super early, then keep the foals that grow up with fleabites appearing earlier than the others.

For AC arabians, it could be as much as 50% or more that they'll fleabite out. Actually, having horses that remain gray and don't fleabite at all or to some, even minimal extent, eventually is extremely rare, so your chances are pretty good that a gray horse you breed to and obtain the foal from, will eventually fleabite at some point.

Mk ty! but what is a AC Arabian?