# How to breed a Roan??



## FullThrottle (20 November 2010)

I have always had a real thing for blue roans, and in the future i would like to breed for myslef and if i managed to breed a blue roan it would just be the icing on the cake so to speak


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## jrp204 (20 November 2010)

Our blue roan was out of a bay welsh d and a part bred quarter horse, she was strawberry roan though, so dont know. No real help then!!


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## PennyJ (20 November 2010)

I have been told I have a very good chance - chestnut roan mare to grey stallion.  Her previous foal went roan (bay roan from bay stallion), so I'm hopeful...


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## Doris68 (20 November 2010)

There don't seem to be as many roans around as there were when I was young!  Always rode a blue roan, bay roan, strawberry roan or any other sort of roan. Nothing more to add, except that maybe the breeding patterns have changed....ie. there weren't any "way back when"...??

Any other oldies have any "roan" memories??


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## cariad (20 November 2010)

Don't usually post on here, but love blue roans, so had to say something. Way back when, when I was a kid, a friend of a friend had a blue roan who went from practically black at the front to white at the rear and all sorts of blue/grey in between. I then looked after a blue roan in Gloucestershire when I was a groom there. Again when I was a kid and did work for rides, as you did, the riding school had Gail, a rather grumpy strawberry roan mare and Juliet who was another roan and her brother whose name I forget, but who was the same roan as well.  I've always liked them, but they are quite rare these days.


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## Clodagh (21 November 2010)

I have heard, but this might be an old wives tale, that you shouldn't breed roan to roan or the offspring can die, its a fatal combination or something. 
I lover roan and they did used to be everywhere, you never get a bad one they say. I bought a roan 2 year old to be a companion to my foal and he can be a little b*gger though!!


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## angrovestud (21 November 2010)

To Breed blue roan you would need a black based sire or dam on to a bay or strawberry roan mare if you choose a black Homozygous you would have a 50 % chance of blue roan and 50% chance of black. I used to own a blue roan truly georgous person he led me to coloureds


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## Rollin (21 November 2010)

Doris68 said:



			There don't seem to be as many roans around as there were when I was young!  Always rode a blue roan, bay roan, strawberry roan or any other sort of roan. Nothing more to add, except that maybe the breeding patterns have changed....ie. there weren't any "way back when"...??

Any other oldies have any "roan" memories??
		
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As well as my well known love of the CB, which I breed, we also breed Shagya Arabs, which look almost white when fully grown but are actually registered Bay Roan in the Hungarian stud book.


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## minime (21 November 2010)

Clodagh said:



			I have heard, but this might be an old wives tale, that you shouldn't breed roan to roan or the offspring can die, its a fatal combination or something.
		
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This is very true. If you put two roans together that contain the O gene you have a high possibilty that the foal will die shortly after birth. This also counts for greys.


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## Doncella (21 November 2010)

Doris68 said:



			There don't seem to be as many roans around as there were when I was young!  Always rode a blue roan, bay roan, strawberry roan or any other sort of roan. Nothing more to add, except that maybe the breeding patterns have changed....ie. there weren't any "way back when"...??

Any other oldies have any "roan" memories??
		
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About thirty years ago I used to ride two roan Dales ponies and one yard I was on had a cracking little bayroan cob of about 13.2.
As I child I rode a strawberry roan NF gelding and a blue roan gelding.


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## SO1 (21 November 2010)

strawberry roans are quite common amongst new forests - my pony's dad was strawberry roan but my pony is bay - one of my pony's sons is chestnut roan and he in turned has sired a lot of strawberry roans. 

There are also some blue roans too but less common.

I know this make my pony sound old as he is a grandad but he is only 8 and had the snip quite a few years ago!

blue roan is one of my favorite colours.


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## volatis (21 November 2010)

minime said:



			This is very true. If you put two roans together that contain the O gene you have a high possibilty that the foal will die shortly after birth. This also counts for greys.
		
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What is this O gene, never heard of it before

There is a syndrome called Leathal White that can occur in new born foals but that is nothing to do with the gene for roan as far as I am aware, i thought it was splash or similar


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## jrp204 (21 November 2010)

The 2 in my sig are full siblings, out of the other full siblings there has been 2 strawberry roans and a bay.


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## appylass (21 November 2010)

minime said:



			This is very true. If you put two roans together that contain the O gene you have a high possibilty that the foal will die shortly after birth. This also counts for greys.
		
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 I see Volatis has also asked about this; I too would like to know a little more about the O gene. I 'think' Lethal White happens in Overo/Overo mating but could be hopelessly wrong. I know years ago that is was believed that homozygous roan was lethal - or didn't exist - I thought this had been disproved now. I think Quarter Horses can have homozygous roans? 

I would also be interested about the greys? I have a breed where grey is very prominent but I have not heard of them dying at birth due to this gene?

Thanks for any extra info you can give


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## s4sugar (21 November 2010)

Lethal white or OLWS is frame overo not roan.
Any foal homozygous for this pattern will be born white and die within days.

Mating two roans is safe.


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## minime (22 November 2010)

Sugar is right, I have just been on an American forum discussing this and apparently now they are saying that it is safe to breed roan to roan. I was told before to not do this. My mare is heterozygous for Roan so I have a 50/50 chance of getting a blue roan if she is bred with a black stallion. 
If your horse is homozygous for roan breeding her/him with a black horse will increase your chances of a blue roan as opposed to a red or a bay roan.
A stallion that is homo for both black and roan should give only roan foals.
(this is what I have been told anyway, I hope it is of some help)
What about silver black roans???? They are my favourite.
http://www.galloping...es/DSC_8856.htm


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## lillith (22 November 2010)

I think with the O gene you mean Lethal White Overo - 'frame' coloured horses (think american paint colouring, white splatted on from the side) are heterozygous LWO and homozygotes are born all white with an incomplete colon and die within a day or so of birth. Not a huge issue in the UK as very few horses over here carry frame, I think it is only minis that it is common in. 

Roan MAY be a homozygous lethal - I think it was Anne Bowling who said it was (or maybe Anne who said it wasn't and Spoonberg who said it was) - I am still on the fence, there are some roan QH stallions out of 2 roans with 100% roan offspring with many progeny on the ground many of which out of non-roan mares which would indicate homozygous roan but aparently there aren't as many as there should be if it is never lethal so it is a bit confusing. If it is lethal it is lethal at a very early stage in pregnancy not after the foal is born, the mare with simply abort. There was a study which said that it definately wasn't but it was criticized for using app roans, rabicanos and frosted roans as well as true roans if my addled brain is remembering right.

The most awkward thing about breeding for a blue roan is that roan is linked to the extension (black/red) locus so will be linked to one of the E's (or e's) so if a stallion is Blue roan out of a red roan mare and a black stallion (Ee Rnrn) the roan will be passed on with the 'e' every time (barring crossovers - around a 7% chance I think) as it was passed from the dam with the 'e'. So breeding to him for a blue roan is not likely to work unless the mare is 'EE' and if the foal is blue roan it will be Ee. Idealy for blue roan you want a blue roan stallion with a blue roan parent, preferably EE and if possible homozygous roan as well.


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## s4sugar (22 November 2010)

That link doesn't work so do you mean Grullo roans or silver dapple roans?


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## Sprout (22 November 2010)

Sorry, I dont know the answer, but one of mine is a blue roan, and although I am biased, I think he is gorgeous!


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## minime (22 November 2010)

s4sugar said:



			That link doesn't work so do you mean Grullo roans or silver dapple roans?
		
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sorry, try this.
http://www.gallopingwinds.com/gallery/equine10/aamhs_saturday_am_jun1910/pages/DSC_8933.htm


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## KarynK (23 November 2010)

Certainly some old Quarter Horse lines do have homozygous roan horses.  Roan linkage to base colour is only proven in trials on Draft Breeds, so there is an awful lot more research to do on this, as this does not appear to be true of some other notable breeds having a roan mutation.  Some roan mutations could well produce unviable zygotes but fertility reports available do not seem to correlate with this and the conclusion of the QH study was that there was no evidence that roan is lethal when homozygous.  But I am sure there is more than one roan mutation as many other ticking effect patterns can mimic it quite closely and it may well be that some are homozygous lethal.

The roan gene has been identified and it sits along with dominant white, tobiano and sabino-1 on the Kit Gene.  This is a large and complex gene also involved in metabolism so it is highly likely that mutations which affect colour also have an effect on aspects of metabolism which would very easily have a lethal effect.  

If a gene is dominant and the mutation giving the colour effect also  &#8220;cut&#8217;s out&#8221; a whole section of the gene responsible for metabolism then if only one copy is present a horse will inherit the normal gene from the other parent so will be ok, but if it gets two copies of the faulty gene it can&#8217;t survive.

So far the dominant white genes identified are thought to be homozygous lethal, but since they are very rare they are seldom if ever bred to each other to establish at what stage they would abort or if they would proceed to birth like overo&#8217;s do this is not fully confirmed as yet.

It appears that the &#8220;white&#8217;s&#8221; are a very complex area of horse colour and the simplicity provided by early theoretic models pre genetic research is now proving too simplistic to explain the variation we see in the patterns and distribution of white in the coat.

So if you want to breed a roan first sort out the base colours, look for a QH stallion that is homozygous and has the correct base colour.

If you want a black based roan then a homozygous black mare is your best starting point, from there you need a homozygous QH Stallion who is also black and there you have a black roan.

Any chestnut in the breeding and you might not get your black as they carry the modification that turns a black horse bay or brown, so unless they test &#8220;aa&#8221; (black) you cannot be sure.  Any other roan stallion and your chances of roan fall to around 50/50 unless they have a linkage to base colour.

p.s. Grey is not associated with the Kit Gene colours in fact grey is not a colour and is not lethal apart of course from it&#8217;s association with melanomas which can be malignant in some cases.  The only confirmed colour pattern associated with non viable live births are Overo (the O gene) located on the EDNRB gene, separate from KIT and lavender in Arabians, thought to be a recessive gene associated with neurological disease.


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## appylass (23 November 2010)

KarynK, thank you for another really informative and interesting post. Are you going to write a book? I would buy it! I am really interested in colour genetics but do find some of it rather hard to understand. You have that wonderful knack of putting things in an easy to understand way.


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## KarynK (24 November 2010)

appylass said:



			KarynK, thank you for another really informative and interesting post. Are you going to write a book? I would buy it! I am really interested in colour genetics but do find some of it rather hard to understand. You have that wonderful knack of putting things in an easy to understand way.
		
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Thank you appylass you're not the first to ask, was thinking about it but the pace of discovery is moving quite fast at the moment so perhaps an E book would be better!!  I have a few of projects to finish first as soon as my laptop recovers from it's surgery or I get a new one!


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## appylass (24 November 2010)

Please keep us posted, I am sure I am not the only one who would be very keen


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