One Surprise Chestnut Colt?

[ArcticDahlia]

So I have these two dapple NABs from the AC (one on here and one on my side):
Dam-
Lena

Sire -
Arygryos


And they've had four fully related foals together (another ~1/3 of the way along):
Colt 1:
Jairo

Colt 2:
Kairo

Colt 3:
Tor

Filly 1:
Ferrah


Tor was a bit of a surprise for me, with two silver dapple parents and three SD siblings.. what does that say about the parents genetics, having produced a random chestnut foal?

Also, unrelated note, but it seems the "quality" of their foals go down with each one. Is this something I'm doing wrong with breeding or simply due to Lena's age?

[PeacefulOreo]

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I think it's either a hidden gene or the silver dapple tobiano is on a chestnut base.

As for the quality of the foals, I think it's mostly the genetics that's making some foals better than others?

[horsesfurever]

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I think it's either a hidden gene or the silver dapple tobiano is on a chestnut base.

As for the quality of the foals, I think it's mostly the genetics that's making some foals better than others?

Lena and Arygryos are both silver dapple tobiano, which is silver on a black base. It isn't possible to have silver dapple on a chestnut base because silver does not show up on chestnut bases, only black bases.
Now I'm going to go into a bit of genetics, so bear with me
The very first thing that determines the horse's base coat color is the red/black factor. Black is dominant to red (chestnut) so a black-based horse (either black or an agouti variant) would be either homozygous dominant (EE) or heterozygous (Ee) while a chestnut horse is always homozygous recessive (ee). Since both parents only pass on one gene of the pair, the only way two black-based parents could produce a chestnut foal is if both parents are heterozygous (Ee).
I hope that helps, but if it doesn't then I'm sure BlackOak2 will it explain it much better!

[BlackOak2]

I think it's either a hidden gene or the silver dapple tobiano is on a chestnut base.

As for the quality of the foals, I think it's mostly the genetics that's making some foals better than others?

Lena and Arygryos are both silver dapple tobiano, which is silver on a black base. It isn't possible to have silver dapple on a chestnut base because silver does not show up on chestnut bases, only black bases.
Now I'm going to go into a bit of genetics, so bear with me
The very first thing that determines the horse's base coat color is the red/black factor. Black is dominant to red (chestnut) so a black-based horse (either black or an agouti variant) would be either homozygous dominant (EE) or heterozygous (Ee) while a chestnut horse is always homozygous recessive (ee). Since both parents only pass on one gene of the pair, the only way two black-based parents could produce a chestnut foal is if both parents are heterozygous (Ee).
I hope that helps, but if it doesn't then I'm sure BlackOak2 will it explain it much better!

I would've said something very similar.

As for the reason the foals appear to be consistently getting worse, we haven't yet had proof that older horses throw worse offspring. So right now I can assume that it's simply the luck of the draw.
I have had mares in the past, that threw a 'perfect' foal for their very fist one, then thereafter, bred until death, never a good one again. But I've also had mares that threw rather mediocre foals for most of their lives, then pop a gorgeous one much later in life. I've also had mares that regularly threw great-looking ones.
So it's likely an indication that your pair of AC horses, do have some hidden good-stuffs, but that most of their stuffs may not be too great.

[ArcticDahlia]

Lena and Arygryos are both silver dapple tobiano, which is silver on a black base. It isn't possible to have silver dapple on a chestnut base because silver does not show up on chestnut bases, only black bases.
Now I'm going to go into a bit of genetics, so bear with me
The very first thing that determines the horse's base coat color is the red/black factor. Black is dominant to red (chestnut) so a black-based horse (either black or an agouti variant) would be either homozygous dominant (EE) or heterozygous (Ee) while a chestnut horse is always homozygous recessive (ee). Since both parents only pass on one gene of the pair, the only way two black-based parents could produce a chestnut foal is if both parents are heterozygous (Ee).
I hope that helps, but if it doesn't then I'm sure BlackOak2 will it explain it much better!

I would've said something very similar.

As for the reason the foals appear to be consistently getting worse, we haven't yet had proof that older horses throw worse offspring. So right now I can assume that it's simply the luck of the draw.
I have had mares in the past, that threw a 'perfect' foal for their very fist one, then thereafter, bred until death, never a good one again. But I've also had mares that threw rather mediocre foals for most of their lives, then pop a gorgeous one much later in life. I've also had mares that regularly threw great-looking ones.
So it's likely an indication that your pair of AC horses, do have some hidden good-stuffs, but that most of their stuffs may not be too great.

Thank you for the responses y'all!! So to be clear... I guess I could label them Silver Dapple Heterozygous Black? Also, I'm trying to get used to the short labels that work with coat calculators; would this be an acceptable format:
(E/e Z/z)
I'm assuming since they produced a foal without dappling they're also heterozygous for Silver (Z), or could Tor have dappling "hidden" by chestnut since it can't show on that base (making him I guess (e/e Z/*))?
Or do we have no way to know, making the parents (E/e Z/*)?

Sorry, I get very confused on how the letters interact with each other genetically haha..

Also, another dapple on the tally lol
Akira

[BlackOak2]

Thank you for the responses y'all!! So to be clear... I guess I could label them Silver Dapple Heterozygous Black? Also, I'm trying to get used to the short labels that work with coat calculators; would this be an acceptable format:
(E/e Z/z)
I'm assuming since they produced a foal without dappling they're also heterozygous for Silver (Z), or could Tor have dappling "hidden" by chestnut since it can't show on that base (making him I guess (e/e Z/*))?
Or do we have no way to know, making the parents (E/e Z/*)?

Sorry, I get very confused on how the letters interact with each other genetically haha..

Also, another dapple on the tally lol
Akira

The parents are simply unknown for if they're double Z or just single Z, as well as the foals, they could be double Z, single Z or a mix, even the chestnut. In the case of dominant genes, the only way to really tell if they're one or the other, is if they pop a foal you're not expecting (just like your chestnut foal), thus proving that they're a half and half rather than a double. We can't really prove they're a double until our gene testing comes out...
However, with enough generations of just the one type popping out, it can be legitimately offered that they're 'most likely' double dominant, because there hasn't been a sign of anything else for an 'X' amount of generations.

As for the color names, I always say to use what makes sense to YOU and reminds you of what you need to know about the color. I would simply call them silver dapples, then in the notes, I would likely write it something along the lines of: E/e Z/?
For the chestnut foal: e/e ?/?
If you always write them in the same format, then even if you have a couple of unknown questions, you'll still be able to recognize that it's an unknown silver.

To be clear: The silver is just hidden behind the chestnut. If you were to cross the foal with a black or an agouti and pop a black-based foal (black or bay or wild bay or brown) and the foal pops out with silver, then the chestnut has at least one silver gene. If it pops out without silver, then you will also know that the chestnut definitely has at least one NON-silver gene and that ONE of the chestnut's parents also only has one silver gene.

As a basic rule (for the most part), when writing it, dominant genes are usually written as capitol: E/E or E/e; but recessives are lower case: pr/pr or pr/n (pearl gene); and also, dominants are written in the first position while recessives are written in the second: E/e or Cr/pr.

However, how the gene coding is written, is up to how you want to read them. Many of us generally start with base color first (black/red) then move on to whatever in order of personal importance.

[ArcticDahlia]

Thank you for the responses y'all!! So to be clear... I guess I could label them Silver Dapple Heterozygous Black? Also, I'm trying to get used to the short labels that work with coat calculators; would this be an acceptable format:
(E/e Z/z)
I'm assuming since they produced a foal without dappling they're also heterozygous for Silver (Z), or could Tor have dappling "hidden" by chestnut since it can't show on that base (making him I guess (e/e Z/*))?
Or do we have no way to know, making the parents (E/e Z/*)?

Sorry, I get very confused on how the letters interact with each other genetically haha..

Also, another dapple on the tally lol
Akira

The parents are simply unknown for if they're double Z or just single Z, as well as the foals, they could be double Z, single Z or a mix, even the chestnut. In the case of dominant genes, the only way to really tell if they're one or the other, is if they pop a foal you're not expecting (just like your chestnut foal), thus proving that they're a half and half rather than a double. We can't really prove they're a double until our gene testing comes out...
However, with enough generations of just the one type popping out, it can be legitimately offered that they're 'most likely' double dominant, because there hasn't been a sign of anything else for an 'X' amount of generations.

As for the color names, I always say to use what makes sense to YOU and reminds you of what you need to know about the color. I would simply call them silver dapples, then in the notes, I would likely write it something along the lines of: E/e Z/?
For the chestnut foal: e/e ?/?
If you always write them in the same format, then even if you have a couple of unknown questions, you'll still be able to recognize that it's an unknown silver.

To be clear: The silver is just hidden behind the chestnut. If you were to cross the foal with a black or an agouti and pop a black-based foal (black or bay or wild bay or brown) and the foal pops out with silver, then the chestnut has at least one silver gene. If it pops out without silver, then you will also know that the chestnut definitely has at least one NON-silver gene and that ONE of the chestnut's parents also only has one silver gene.

As a basic rule (for the most part), when writing it, dominant genes are usually written as capitol: E/E or E/e; but recessives are lower case: pr/pr or pr/n (pearl gene); and also, dominants are written in the first position while recessives are written in the second: E/e or Cr/pr.

However, how the gene coding is written, is up to how you want to read them. Many of us generally start with base color first (black/red) then move on to whatever in order of personal importance.

That clears up sooo many questions I've been trying to figure out, thank you so much!!! It's so cool learning about this, there's so many layers and variables haha. Also, I'm not sure if this is already in any quick links but I was looking online the other day and found this, which I thought was pretty awesome and I kind of wanted to share
https://www.etalondx.com/horse-genes-coat-color
It didn't help much with my specific situational questions like this but its got a bunch of the quick abbreviations for colors and all that which I love.

EDIT: One more question I'm sorry For the dapple foals from them, since both parents are E/e, I'm assuming there's a 50/50 chance on them being E/e vs. E/E, correct (so I would have to breed in order to find out which they are)?

[BlackOak2]

That clears up sooo many questions I've been trying to figure out, thank you so much!!! It's so cool learning about this, there's so many layers and variables haha. Also, I'm not sure if this is already in any quick links but I was looking online the other day and found this, which I thought was pretty awesome and I kind of wanted to share
https://www.etalondx.com/horse-genes-coat-color
It didn't help much with my specific situational questions like this but its got a bunch of the quick abbreviations for colors and all that which I love.

EDIT: One more question I'm sorry For the dapple foals from them, since both parents are E/e, I'm assuming there's a 50/50 chance on them being E/e vs. E/E, correct (so I would have to breed in order to find out which they are)?

I don't like to link off-site in my quick-links, because it's off-site.
But that is certainly a good-looking link. I'll throw it into my quicklinks for reference.

[BlackOak2]

In reference to your edit, have you ever used the Punnett Square? This will help to identify how many likely offspring will result from a set of parents. Since both parents are hetro for black, they have a 50% to throw single blacks, 25% to throw double blacks and 25% to throw chestnuts. It can be looked at as 75% black-based foals and 25% chestnut.

[ArcticDahlia]

In reference to your edit, have you ever used the Punnett Square? This will help to identify how many likely offspring will result from a set of parents. Since both parents are hetro for black, they have a 50% to throw single blacks, 25% to throw double blacks and 25% to throw chestnuts. It can be looked at as 75% black-based foals and 25% chestnut.

Oh sorry, I worded that wrong haha. I was double-checking if both the parents turned out to be Z/z, the foals could either be Z/Z, Z/z, or z/z? I was trying to figure out how I could know if some foals were Z/Z (I guess by breeding them to non-chestnut/agouti horses?)