A gray foal may be born any color. However, bay, chestnut, or black base colors are most often seen. As the horse matures, it "grays out" as white hairs begin to replace the base or birth color. Usually white hairs are first seen by the muzzle, eyes and flanks, occasionally at birth, and usually by the age of one year.
Grey is not actually a color, it's a process of depigmentation, or fast aging, of the horse's base coat color. A foal that's destined to be grey is typically born bay or chestnut and then becomes grey over time. Sometimes the process is very slow, other times it happens quickly.
A "Grey" horse is born coloured (black, brown or chestnut) but the greying process starts very early in life -- during its first year. These horses are normally completely white by six to eight years of age but the skin remains pigmented.
In grey horses, foals are often born black and slowly lighten as they are. This means that dapples only start to appear in older foals. Even then, the dapples can lighten or darken as these horses age.
If a chestnut or palomino foal is born with BLACK skin around the eyes, it will turn grey. The bays are not always quite as obvious, however, if the legs on a bay foal are mousy/tan color, you are usually looking at a non-grey foal. If the legs are born BLACK – as in “mature horse color”, then the foal will turn grey.
Gray is dominant, therefore a single copy of the gray allele will cause a horse to turn gray. If a horse has two copies of gray, all offspring of this horse will be gray.
Grey horses are born normal coloured and slowly “lose” colour over time – they first go grey, and eventually white. At birth, foals that will go grey are often very intensely coloured (hyperpigmented).
Dappled grey horses are usually born a different color than grey; they can be born with chestnut, bay, black, or even buckskin coat coloring. As they age, their darker coats will begin to get lighter hairs until, eventually, they will be completely grey.
For the most basic colors – such as sorrel or chestnut, bay, palomino or black – guessing is fairly simple. Check the Color-Cross Chart to find the color possibilities for your foal. The parent's specific genetic makeup will make a difference in what colors it can produce. Homozygous = carries two copies of a gene.
It is important to remember that a Greying horse MUST have one Greying parent – the G allele is a dominant and CANNOT be hidden. So two non-grey horses cannot produce a Greying foal no matter how many Greys there are in the pedigree !!
Gray babies may be born in numerous coat colors, making it hard to determine if you have a gray foal. But there are some tell-tale signs: gray hairs around their eyes and mouth and solid-colored lower legs. Gray is a dominant color gene that influences a horse's base color.
According to University of California at Davis – one of the leading equine genetics labs – grey horses typically complete the depigmentation process and become fully white by age 6-8, though some horses may turn white more rapidly or remain grey past the age of 10.
A "grey horse is born black, brown, or chestnut, but the greying process starts very early in life -- during its first year. These horses are normally completely white by six to eight years of age but the skin remains pigmented. This process resembles greying in humans, but it is ultrafast in horses.
One interesting thing about grey is that it often causes the horse to be much darker, when young, than it would have been without the grey gene. Black foals that will go grey are typically born jet-black, for example, while those that are not grey are usually more of a pewter-grey shade at first.
Black foals are born smoke gray, just as Ox Kill King was. (I dropped the “Silver” when he was registered as he was indeed black). Gray foals, on the other hand, can be bay or black when born, but a careful examination around the eyes will reveal a scattering of white hairs.
My gelding is a grey out of palamino sire. So he has a golden tint. Beautiful !!!!! It is NOT impossible to get a palomino out of a gray mare IF the genetics of her base color are correct.
OLWS is a genetic mutation that affects horses with white markings and can lead to death in foals. Foals with two copies of this gene are born white with blue eyes and have intestines that don't fully develop. There is no treatment for OLWS.
Foal color can change considerably during the first year -- even during the following spring. Horses tend to be born lighter in color and shed off darker when losing the foal coat. Other changes include horses that shed off roan or turn gray when losing the foal coat.
Bay is the dominant phenotype (the physical expression of a genetic trait) between the two, and its genotype is expressed by either E/Aa or E/AA. Black is the recessive coat color, meaning it is always homozygous and expressed asE/aa. All other equine coat colors and patterns stem from these base coat colors.
A gray foal may be born any color. However, bay, chestnut, or black base colors are most often seen. As the horse matures, it "grays out" as white hairs begin to replace the base or birth color.
No. Dappling is a trait that tends to come and go, eventually fading as the gray horse turns white over time. Most gray horses are born black and turn gray over time, developing their dapples as they do. Not all horses are created equally, so you may know a gray horse in his twenties that still has his dapples.
Grey Horses Have Higher Risk Of Developing Illness
From the age of 10 onwards they are genetically more likely to develop tumours on their skin, called melanomas, due to a biochemical link between coat colour and this illness.
When born with a base color of sorrel, gray foals generally have dark skin. Normal (not-graying) sorrels are born with pink/peach skin color usually. Often, gray hairs can be seen near the eyeballs immediately or within a couple months of birth (see photos above). Click here to see mature gray horses.
The gray gene is a dominant gene and cannot “show up” later on, as recessive genes are wont to do. So if your horse is gray, you know without question that one or both of its parents were gray.