Questions for Anglo Arabian Stud breeders about Color Genetics

[emorrison787]

I don't understand color genetics that well. I am trying to breed a Strawberry Roan (Red Roan) Filly. I have a Red Roan ANGLO stud with socks. I don't want to breed him for the simple reason that I don't want him to pass down his socks. I have tried breeding my Blue Roan Mares to Bays and Chestnuts, but I keep getting black foals. SO I HAVE LOTS OF BLACK HORSES FOR SALE.

I have two questions.

1. Does anyone have a RED ROAN Stud that I may breed one of my horses too? If so which mare should I use?

2. Can someone explain to me how I can get that strawberry roan filly that I am looking for?

The Strawberry Roan Stud that I have; His Sire was a blue roan and His Dam was a Bay with socks.
I have tried that combination multiple times. It isn't working. REPEAT: Black is all I am getting.

I have lots of Blue Roan and Bay Roans.. and even a cream roan..
I have even tried breeding my cream roan to a bay only to end up with another bay roan.

[Corvus]

I don't understand color genetics that well. I am trying to breed a Strawberry Roan (Red Roan) Filly. I have a Red Roan ANGLO stud with socks. I don't want to breed him for the simple reason that I don't want him to pass down his socks. I have tried breeding my Blue Roan Mares to Bays and Chestnuts, but I keep getting black foals. SO I HAVE LOTS OF BLACK HORSES FOR SALE.

I have two questions.

1. Does anyone have a RED ROAN Stud that I may breed one of my horses too? If so which mare should I use?

2. Can someone explain to me how I can get that strawberry roan filly that I am looking for?

The Strawberry Roan Stud that I have; His Sire was a blue roan and His Dam was a Bay with socks.
I have tried that combination multiple times. It isn't working. REPEAT: Black is all I am getting.

I have lots of Blue Roan and Bay Roans.. and even a cream roan..
I have even tried breeding my cream roan to a bay only to end up with another bay roan.

The black allele is dominant to the chestnut allele, and depending on the black horse's genetics, they may not be able to have a red foal. A black horse would either have two copies of the black allele or they could have one copy of black and one of red. Because black is dominant, you can't tell just by looking at a black horse if they have a red allele or not. You can make guesses by looking at parents, full siblings, and foals.

So for the blue roan that gave you a strawberry roan, we can say that he certainly carries the allele for red. It's a little harder to say for certain if they don't have the red allele. The blue roan mares who haven't given you a red yet could have the red allele and you just have bad luck. If you breed a black horse to a chestnut, you have about a 50% chance of getting a chestnut foal if (and only if) the black horse does carry the allele. If you have 4 foals from that combination and they're all black, there's a decent chance the black does not have a red allele.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I can try to explain it better if you want to try to understand.

To get a better chance at the foal you're looking for, I would breed to chestnut only. You should treat bays as blacks since genetically, they're a black horse with the black restricted to certain areas. They may or may not carry the red allele. Two black (or bay) horses (if both carry the red allele) only have a 25% chance of producing a chestnut foal, so much lower chances, although if you see that one of the parents of a black horse is chestnut, you do know they carry the allele, so you can try it.

Your blue roan mares when bred to a chestnut stallion should be able to at least give you more blue roans. Those foals will carry the red allele, so if you breed them together, you'll have a 25% chance of getting a strawberry roan foal.

[emorrison787]

The black allele is dominant to the chestnut allele, and depending on the black horse's genetics, they may not be able to have a red foal. A black horse would either have two copies of the black allele or they could have one copy of black and one of red. Because black is dominant, you can't tell just by looking at a black horse if they have a red allele or not. You can make guesses by looking at parents, full siblings, and foals.

So for the blue roan that gave you a strawberry roan, we can say that he certainly carries the allele for red. It's a little harder to say for certain if they don't have the red allele. The blue roan mares who haven't given you a red yet could have the red allele and you just have bad luck. If you breed a black horse to a chestnut, you have about a 50% chance of getting a chestnut foal if (and only if) the black horse does carry the allele. If you have 4 foals from that combination and they're all black, there's a decent chance the black does not have a red allele.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I can try to explain it better if you want to try to understand.

To get a better chance at the foal you're looking for, I would breed to chestnut only. You should treat bays as blacks since genetically, they're a black horse with the black restricted to certain areas. They may or may not carry the red allele. Two black (or bay) horses (if both carry the red allele) only have a 25% chance of producing a chestnut foal, so much lower chances, although if you see that one of the parents of a black horse is chestnut, you do know they carry the allele, so you can try it.

Your blue roan mares when bred to a chestnut stallion should be able to at least give you more blue roans. Those foals will carry the red allele, so if you breed them together, you'll have a 25% chance of getting a strawberry roan foal.

Thank you so much for this information and for taking the time to explain this. YES, I would love to understand it more. It is starting to make sense to me now. I started looking back on some of their pedigrees and that explains the black foals.. I wasn't really good at the Punnett Squares in school. So, I have been gambling with genetics.
For another example: I bred my Cream Roan to a Bay and ended up with a bay roan. I then bred her again to a different Bay stud and got a Seal Brown! How that happens I don't know. I need to understand this better, so that I can properly apply my resources. Oh, and sadly I do not own any chestnuts. Also there isn't very many chestnut studs available that are 5* or reasonably priced. So It's a waiting game for me.

[BlackOak2]

As a note, the socks are from the tobiano gene. They don't always pop up in the foals. You should try breeding to that strawberry stud you have. There is a chance that a foal will be born without socks, especially if you're breeding to a mare with no markings at all.

Of course, you could also have a foal born with body-coverage of tobaino too.

And remember, the rehoming button can be your friend.

[emorrison787]

As a note, the socks are from the tobiano gene. They don't always pop up in the foals. You should try breeding to that strawberry stud you have. There is a chance that a foal will be born without socks, especially if you're breeding to a mare with no markings at all.

Of course, you could also have a foal born with body-coverage of tobaino too.

And remember, the rehoming button can be your friend.

I would, but he is also closely related to some of my other mares. there is only a limited number of available studs with energy to use in the market; in result some of my mares have common ancestors. basically my mares are cousins and second cousins or half siblings of each other. I try my best to not inbreed them.

[Corvus]

Thank you so much for this information and for taking the time to explain this. YES, I would love to understand it more. It is starting to make sense to me now. I started looking back on some of their pedigrees and that explains the black foals.. I wasn't really good at the Punnett Squares in school. So, I have been gambling with genetics.
For another example: I bred my Cream Roan to a Bay and ended up with a bay roan. I then bred her again to a different Bay stud and got a Seal Brown! How that happens I don't know. I need to understand this better, so that I can properly apply my resources. Oh, and sadly I do not own any chestnuts. Also there isn't very many chestnut studs available that are 5* or reasonably priced. So It's a waiting game for me.

Yeah, I know that struggle about finding the right horses to breed! Sometimes, it takes much longer than expected to get the right combinations.

I feel it's easiest to learn how one gene works at a time, so this is just how the black/red gene works. It's also called the extension gene, which is why when writing out the genotypes, they use the letter E. I believe there are 3 alleles for that gene, one which produce black and two that can give you red, although for the purposes of this game, we can treat the two alleles for red as the same. Each animal has two alleles for each gene and one from each parent gets passed to the offspring.

It's easiest to write out the parents genotypes as EE, Ee, or ee. Big E is the black allele and e is the red allele. Because black is the dominant allele, both EE and Ee produce a black horse and will look the same. One allele from each parent gets passed on to the offspring, so an EE horse can never produce a red foal. They will always pass on one E allele, which means they'll be black. For your purposes, you won't want an EE horse, but Ee is useful. Any Ee horse has a 50% chance of giving the e to their offspring, although two Ee horses only have a 25% chance of an ee foal since you have to combine probabilities.

The reason black is dominant is because the E allele tells the horse to produce dark pigment, while e says "don't make black." So if you have one allele saying "make black" and one saying "don't," the black pigment is made and you can't tell that you have another allele saying not to make it.

I know there's a lot going on with the roan gene, and I'd have to look up exactly how it works. But the basics are that roan is a dominant allele, which means a horse could appear roan but also carry the allele for non-roan. This means only half their foals will be roan.

Bay is another separate gene called agouti and there are multiple alleles. What this gene does is restrict where the black pigment is, so although a chestnut horse has the genes, it doesn't do anything to affect their appearance. The alleles for this gene are a (non-bay), A (bay), A+ (wild bay), and At (seal brown). In order for a black horse to appear black, they need to be aa. If they have any other allele, they'll be bay or brown. Bay is dominant over seal brown, so a horse can appear bay but pass on the seal brown allele, which is why you'll sometimes see that when breeding to bays. In that case, the horse's genotype was likely AAt, so he'd appear bay like any other, but half of his foals would get the At allele.

The agouti gene is a little trickier when anything with a red base is involved, because you can't see the effects of the agouti alleles at all. So a chestnut horse could be bred to a black (genotype EEaa) and if the chestnut has any of the agouti alleles, you could get a bay or seal brown horse from them. Horses with genotypes of eeAA, eeaa, eeAAt, eeA+a, etc will all appear the same, but will produce different foals.

If you remember that black is dominant to red and roan is dominant to non-roan, that can help you out because those dominant genes can't hide. So two non-roan horses will never produce a roan foal, but two roans can produce a non-roan because that gene is recessive. In the same way, two black horses can produce a chestnut as long as they both have those recessive alleles.

I sometimes keep track of colors genetics in my horse's notes just since it's a lot to remember. You can track just for the genes you're interested in to simplify too. So on a blue roan, I'd put E?Rn? in the notes. Then, as I look at the foals, I might put some more info in there. For instance, if I were to get a chestnut foal, I would know for sure that the horse was EeRn?. I could also see how the roan is passed on. If every single foal with a non-roan horse was roan, then my horse likely has two copies of the roan allele and would then put RnRn in the notes. But if my roan horse can produce a non-roan foal, then I know they must be Rnrn.

It takes a bit of effort to get started tracking color genetics, but it gets easier as you get more information. I'm a big nerd who loves genetics if you can't tell so I absolutely love figuring out what alleles I have. But I know it's not for everyone, but with a little luck, you should eventually get your foal.

[BlackOak2]

There are ways to correct COI down the road. But if that's the way you want to play your game, then have at it! Good Luck!

[DestinoRidge]

I don't understand color genetics that well. I am trying to breed a Strawberry Roan (Red Roan) Filly. I have a Red Roan ANGLO stud with socks. I don't want to breed him for the simple reason that I don't want him to pass down his socks. I have tried breeding my Blue Roan Mares to Bays and Chestnuts, but I keep getting black foals. SO I HAVE LOTS OF BLACK HORSES FOR SALE.

I have two questions.

1. Does anyone have a RED ROAN Stud that I may breed one of my horses too? If so which mare should I use?

2. Can someone explain to me how I can get that strawberry roan filly that I am looking for?

The Strawberry Roan Stud that I have; His Sire was a blue roan and His Dam was a Bay with socks.
I have tried that combination multiple times. It isn't working. REPEAT: Black is all I am getting.

I have lots of Blue Roan and Bay Roans.. and even a cream roan..
I have even tried breeding my cream roan to a bay only to end up with another bay roan.

Hey! Don’t know if you’re still breeding Anglo’s but I recently produced a strawberry roan colt if you’re interested. I also have two other dilute bred Anglo Arabians, a stud and a mare.

OutlawKisses


ViolentRose


DreamyOutlaw

[emorrison787]

I don't understand color genetics that well. I am trying to breed a Strawberry Roan (Red Roan) Filly. I have a Red Roan ANGLO stud with socks. I don't want to breed him for the simple reason that I don't want him to pass down his socks. I have tried breeding my Blue Roan Mares to Bays and Chestnuts, but I keep getting black foals. SO I HAVE LOTS OF BLACK HORSES FOR SALE.

I have two questions.

1. Does anyone have a RED ROAN Stud that I may breed one of my horses too? If so which mare should I use?

2. Can someone explain to me how I can get that strawberry roan filly that I am looking for?

The Strawberry Roan Stud that I have; His Sire was a blue roan and His Dam was a Bay with socks.
I have tried that combination multiple times. It isn't working. REPEAT: Black is all I am getting.

I have lots of Blue Roan and Bay Roans.. and even a cream roan..
I have even tried breeding my cream roan to a bay only to end up with another bay roan.

Hey! Don’t know if you’re still breeding Anglo’s but I recently produced a strawberry roan colt if you’re interested. I also have two other dilute bred Anglo Arabians, a stud and a mare.

OutlawKisses


ViolentRose


DreamyOutlaw

Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I am no longer breeding Anglos. I have sold all of my Anglos , so that I could focus on breeding my arabians. I congratulate you on producing a strawberry roan anglo. That was a goal I never accomplished. Thank you for offering to sell him to me first. I would normally take you up on your offer, but I have too many horses right now. I have at least 8+ horses for sale and more to come...

[DestinoRidge]

Hey! Don’t know if you’re still breeding Anglo’s but I recently produced a strawberry roan colt if you’re interested. I also have two other dilute bred Anglo Arabians, a stud and a mare.

OutlawKisses


ViolentRose


DreamyOutlaw

Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I am no longer breeding Anglos. I have sold all of my Anglos , so that I could focus on breeding my arabians. I congratulate you on producing a strawberry roan anglo. That was a goal I never accomplished. Thank you for offering to sell him to me first. I would normally take you up on your offer, but I have too many horses right now. I have at least 8+ horses for sale and more to come...

Of course no problem!(: I’m sorry you never got to accomplish that, all my anglos are actually accidents hahaha! I’ve got a TB cross mare I’m trying breed out the cross w/ to produce purebred TBs and she throws anglos pretty often! I definitely understand on having too many horses I’m in the same boat. Cheers and I hope you are able to sell your stock (: