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  Discussion on Color Genetics
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Member:
Aileen

Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 12:54 am:

If 2 buckskins were bred together, what color possibilities would be possible for the foal?
Member:
Elsiedar

Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 4:29 am:

Aileen,
Breeding for color and especially buckskins is hard to predict and difficult to guarantee you will get a buckskin.

If you breed two buckskins together you could get: buckskin, perlino, palomino, bay, smokey black, chestnut or sorrel, cremello. A lot depends on the color background of the two individuals.

Breeding palomino to palomino gives you 50% palomino, 25% cremello and 25% chestnut.

Breeding palomino to cremello gives you 50% palomino and 50% cremello.

Breeding cremello to chestnut gives you 100% palominos.

Breeding cremello to bay gives you buckskin, palomino or smokey black.


I bred cremello to buckskin and got cremello. I bred perlino to palomino and got buckskin. I bred cremello to bay and got buckskin. The mare is a homogyzous bay and has had 10 foals, 4 bays sired by palominos and 6 buckskins sired by cremellos.

If you bred perlino to bay a got a buckskin and bred to another buckskin bred with the buckskin x perlino cross you would have a greater chance of getting either buckskin or perlino if the individual doesn't have a recessive red gene in which case would allow cremello and palomino, but you still could get a bay or chestnut foal or a slim possibility of smokey black.

If the buckskin was the result of a palomino or cremello x bay cross then you would have an equal chance of getting a palomino or cremello along with buckskin or perlino because the buckskin would have a recessive red gent.

Buckskin color is difficult at best and simply can't be guaranteed that you will get one and if you do the shades of buckskin vary greatly.

My bay mare has had 6 buckskins in 6 years ranging in shade from 1 buttermilk buckskin, 1 golden dapple buckskin, 2 creamy tan buckskins, 1 bronze dapple buckskin and 1 smutty buckskin and 5 were full siblings by the same cremello stallion.

I love buckskins but would never be able to guarantee a buckskin or even a specific shade of buckskin. Breeding for buckskins is a gamble.

I am breeding 1 bay, 2 buckskins and 1 cremello mare to a cremello stallion. I will get a buckskin from the bay mare, a cremello from the cremello mare. One of the buckskins had a cremello colt last year by a cremello, and is bred back to the same stallion, but each year she has the possibility to have buckskin, palomino, a cremello or perlino. The second buckskin is a maiden mare but the same possibility of having either a buckskin, a palomino, a cremello or a perlino.

I have been breeding for dilute Tennessee Walking Horses for 12 of the 40 years I have had had Walking Horses and it is a challenge to breed for color and not sacrifice the wonderful gait, conformation and disposition. So far I have been lucky but I have eliminated the possibility of getting any non-dilutes by having all dilute mares, 2 buckskin mares, 2 palomino fillies, 1 cremello mare and the one bay mare plus 2 cremello stallions.

I hope this helps rather than adds confusion, but breeding for color is a gamble and lots of luck.
Feel free to email me privately or take a look at my breeding successes on my website.

Good luck,

Elsie
darrahe@hotmail.com
https:\www.lastchancefarm.com
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 8:29 am:

To simplify matters a buckskin is a bay with a single cremella dilution gene. So there is one way to always breed a buckskin: A homozygous bay (homozygous for both black color and for bay disribution) bred to a homozygous cremella horse.

While it is easy to pick out homozygous cremella just by appearance a homozygous bay is another matter since there are 3 non-homozygous patterns that yield a bay color. It is uncertain to me at this time if homozygous bay may have some distingusihing characteristics.

A horse with 2 cremella genes may also have the 2 "bay genes" in either heterozygous or homozygous configurations, all producing the perlino color. It makes me dizzy to think of the possibilites, but essentially a horse set up like this can produce a buckskin "sometimes" when bred to any color but another homozygous cremela.

To answer Aileen's question directly these combinations are possible when two buckskins are bred: cremella, palamino, bay, red, black, buckskin, and yes perlino. There may be others....
DrO
Member:
Aileen

Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 9:30 am:

Thank you both very much. I have a friend who thinks that by breeding 2 buckskins she will have a perlino guaranteed. I looked on the color websites, but couldn't come up with anything in "plane English" to show her. <g> I'd hate for her to breed for color and not have some facts. Thanks again.
Member:
Elsiedar

Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2003 - 6:40 pm:

Aileen,
Getting a perlino is like finding a needle in a haystack. My perlino stallion was out of a perlino mare and sired by a cremello stallion. His perlino dam was out of a palomino mare and sired by a buckskin stallion. The perlino mare has had two cremello fillies since but no more perlinos. Cremello bred to cremello gets 100% cremello. Perlino bred to perlino gets 50% perlino and 50% cremello.

I was estatic that when I bred the perlino stallion to a palomino mare I got a buckskin. I sold him to a lady and she bred a large number of palomino and cremello mares to him and got all palominos and cremellos. She bred him to a smokey black and got a buckskin.

I bred my homogyzous bay mare to a cremello and she has had a buckskin every year for six years. When I bred to a palomino she had a bay each time. I bred one of the buckskin fillies to a cremello stallion and with a chance for getting buckskin, palomino, cremello or buckskin I got a cremello colt. This year I have two buckskin mares both of whom are out of bay mares and sired by cremello stallions and I am going to breed both of them to a cremello stallion. It should be interestiing next year as I wait to see whether I get buckskin, palomino, cremello or perlino. I never sacrifice quality for color because quality will sell even without color and color without quality just ruins your reputation as a breeder.
Breeding for color can be a "crap shoot" and a whole lot of luck and a good understanding of equine color genetics and even with all of that sometimes you still don't get what you wished for.

You friend is decreasing the odds of getting a perlino by breeding two buckskins because it becomes a six way split on color possibilities which are bay, chestnut, buckskin, palomino, cremello or perlino. If she could breed a buckskin to a perlino the odds would be greatly improved but it is only a 30% chance of getting a perlino providing of course that she can find a quality perlino. With this cross there is also a 30% chance of buckskin, 20% chance of palomino and a 20% chance of a cremello. I breed Tennessee Walking Horses and there are 15,000 horses registered each year and of that less than 100 buckskins, less than 50 cremellos, 300-400 palominos and less than 10 perlinos and part of those are probably smokey creams. There is no way to estimate how many smokey blacks because the registry doesn't recognize that as a color and so they are all identified as other colors chestnut, black or brown.

Tell your friend that she is bucking odds that are to great and nothing is guaranteed. Give her my email address and maybe I can at least help her to understand the basics of color genetics.
Elsie
darrahe@hotmail.com
https://www.lastchancefarm.com
Member:
Presario

Posted on Sunday, May 18, 2003 - 9:57 pm:

Aileen, if you go to www.doubledilute.com you may be able to convince her that breeding buckskin to buckskin does NOT guarantee "color" at all. If she remembers anything about biology and used punnet squares,and understands what color genes make up a buckskin, she could prove it to herself as well.

A buckskin is a single dilute - one creme gene. That horse has a 50/50 chance every breeding of passing on that dilute gene. The other single dilute has the same 50/50 chance each breeding of passing it along. If neither pass on the dilute gene in one particular breeding, the foal will not be a dilute (buckskin or palomino). If one passes it on, you'd get a buckskin or palomino. If both pass it on you'd get a perlino or cremello.
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