Thank you. That was actually really helpful, I knever knew about the birth colour thing!!

Benny is really coming on now, even though he's still a little skinny and majorly unmuscled! I even sat on him for the first time at the weekend. Here are a few photos of him that are more recent:

he s comming on well .....nice to see the update!

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x

I bred two foals from my grey mare, both by a bay tobaino stallion. The first one was a bay tobiano who greyed out and started to grey out very fast as a yearling and then stopped again. She is definatly only heterozygous gray. Second foal was bay tobiano.

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www.volatis.co.uk

Hmmmmmmmm thats very interesting as i was really going for the FAST GREYING /HOMOZYGOUS ......SLOW GREYING / HETERZYGOUS THEORY as it totally made sense to ME
but perhaps ????????? the "augi " presnt works as an inital accelerater in a heterzygous GREY and it then slows again ie a true black base colour would grey slower than a bay regardless of it being HETERZYGOUS or HOMOZYGOUS if its TRUE ( i m only collecting info & trying to make sense of it .......and here i m thinking out loud i m NOT claiming my theories to be FACT )that GREYING can take place in the womb before the foal is even born
i m going to make a very contraversial "theory" of "mine" NOT FACT the thoughts of a MAD woman!
but as i understand very little had been learnt or observed about GREY in spotted breeding until Sheila Archer embarked on her fantastic & valuable work . However much more was known about GREY and all its different GUISES in "SOLID " breeds as there was nothing to be "MISREAD" OR"MISLEAD" ROANS DON T PROGRESS IN LIGHTENING ........GREYS DO !. so with this in mind i think "COLOURING OUT" is in MY OPINION !!!......A FORM OF "GREYING" THE MAJORITY of these "Lp ROANING " horses being slow greying HETERZYGOUS GREYS that don t live long enough for the greying to reach it fully white stage ??? . but when bred togeter can produe a FAST GREYING/ HOMOZYGOUS GREY . i know how rediculous MY"THEORY "sounds and i don t mind being laughed at or proved wron when DNA testing for GREY comes in but i ve said it so that stops me from bursting I M NOT AFRAID OF BEING WRONG thats all part of education to keep exploring & questioning things

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x

Good attitude to have sarah james None of us ever stop learning about horses until the day we die.

thank you so much FB for understanding where i m comming from , i think its better to stick theories out there in the open so people who are alot more knowledgable than ME :roll:can set about proving or disproving them! i d be equally happy either way just put me out of my misery ! as its been going round & round in my tiny little brain and driving me mad! ever since i found the reaction to Billy being GREY so extreme it made me think " hang on there much more to this than meets the eye! " in the words of shakespeare "ME THINKS THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH " so my curiosity was aroused!
i m sure everybody wet thier pants when someone first dared suggest the world was round not flat!
so we shouldn t always accept EVERYTHING as FACT without exploration

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x

i recieved an e-mail off Sheila Archer .....some of the contents were starklingly strong this is the part thats most important for all us grey owners /breeders to be aware of

Quote:

You wrote: i m totaly open about his Grey status and if i keep him entire as we do now intend to do it will be as a sportshorse not for spotted breeding and the Grey will be explained . As you are considering using your horse as a breeding animal, and also for your sake as the owner of a grey horse, I need to make something very clear to you. Grey is a cancer-causing mutation. All horses that have it develop a form of cancer that, while it is slow-growing, does shorten their lifespan. On average, grey horses live approximately six years less than a non-grey horse does. The horse's body becomes filled with melanomas that grow in the connective tissue along the spine, throughout the body cavity, and eventually appear in more visible regions around the head and under the tail. The melanomas either metastisize (become malignant), or grow large enough to cause a fatal colic due to blockage of the intestintal tract, or some other type of fatal tumour-related death occurs (colic is the most common cause). This includes your horse - no grey is exempt. Since he has only one grey parent, and is therefore heterozygous, for him the progression of the melanomas will be slower than if he were homozygous, which is fortunate. As a breeding animal, Billy being heterozygous for grey means he will pass the grey mutation to his offspring 50% of the time. Like him, they will develop cancer, and eventually begin to suffer from its effects. I and other genetics researchers who understand the nature of grey strongly advise owners of grey horses to not use them as breeding animals. To do so is to bring new horses into the world that will end up suffering from a painful disease that slowly kills them. In my opinion, given the opportunity to avoid perpetuating grey in the equine gene pool, horse breeders have a moral obligation to refrain from using grey horses as breeding animals. Hopefully, as this information that is now mainly accessible only through genetics research papers becomes more widely known, a change in attitude towards grey will occur, and we will see more breeders working to remove it from breeds that have it. The Andalusian is one that is shifting in that direction already.

but some of the best performance & show horses the world has know have been GREYS the more i learn the more confused i get

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x

That really is confusing! I did know that greys are more prone to cancer, but i've also known several greys live into their forties! Personally, ( I might ask a really stupid question here ), is Billy really classed as grey?

OK iam confused....just thought about what i asked, Iam i right in saying, Billy is carrying the grey gene?? I don't want to sound stupid, but I think I am!!

yes Billy s carrying the GREY GENE ( although there s no DNA test available yet )don t feel stupid for asking the question GOD ONLY knows the amount of smoke screens put up around the subject
Although i ve the highest respect for Sheila Archer & all the work she does the only thing i would have to say is she puts her THEORIES across as fact THE ONLY FACT IS THAT SO FAR (hopefully this will change in the not too distant future )THERE IS NO DNA EVIDENCE TO PROVE OR DISPROVE ANY THEORY SURROUNDING GREY i have spoken to people who deal with DNA profiling and although research is progressing well in Sweden towards locating the Gene that causes GREY as of yet there is no reliable test available .so until the time a test is available REALLY its all down to speculation & opinion based on oberservation and interpritation of whats observed PLEASE DON T ANYONE THINK I M UNDERMINDING ANYONES THEORIES OR OPINIONS I M MERELY PUTTING FORWARD AN ALTERNATIVE ONE ( which may lead you to explore & compare theories which is healthy )but until DNA testing is available theres nothing wrong in keeping open minds & exploring and putting forward several different theories as as of yet none of it is 100%FACT .ooooh & for the record i had a PM done when Bamba died so suddenly & unexpectedly it was due to a BURST ANYRISUM NO MELANOMAS PRESENT JUST A WEAKNESS IN HER ARTERY THAT WOULD HAVE PROBABLY BEEN THERE SINCE BIRTH AND COULD HAVE BURST AT ANYTIME & IT IS A CONDITION THAT CAN AFFECT ANY COLOUR & ANY SPECIES INCLUDING HUMANS!

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x

Woah! When I asked about greys I never knew how complicated and contentious it all was!! I'm gonna have to sit down one day when I have more time and really look into this. I was considering breeding to a few greys but will hold off until I know more about it all and the combinations of colour I'm gonna end up with. Sarah James I don't know how you remember it all!!

Blimey, that is a very strong statement for that lady to make. I take it they have done a lot of autopsys on grey horses and found 100% of cancerous growths in them? Has she published this work as its the first I've heard of it. I know greys have a higher incidence of melanomas that non grey horses but to say every single grey horse has cancer???

So how come lippizaners (one word I can never spell!) are known for their longivity and are pretty much all homozygous grey???

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www.volatis.co.uk

The statement from that lady has really freaked me out!!

please don t be freaked out Kate AS Sasha QUESTIONS (im choosing my wording carefully ! )to make such an ALARMINGLY strong statement EXTENSIVE &HIGHLY DETAILED research would have had to be done .this was my response to her e-mail

Quote:

Thanks as always Shiela , i do appreciate you trying to help me understand it all! . this has been such a steep & painful learning curve for me as i m sure you ll appreciate . i will take on board your concerns about the health concerns attatched to greys as i don t want to breed wrecklessly but until far more is proven i ll keep an open mind , i was aware of melanomas in GREYS and i m assuming ( maybe wrongly ? ) that a conection is being made between the Grey gene & the LEATHAL WHITE GENE ???????.But i m sure you ll agree some fantastic perforance & show horses have been Greys and have live long productive ,healthy lives so MAYBE the grey gene plays a part but needs to come together with "SOMETHING" else for the cancers to cause sugnificant problems ? but its excellent that more is being learnt all the time . I hope you ll understand i d like to breed off Billy if onlt to my own mares to keep Bamba "alive" if i recognise any problems i ll be the first to report them and geld Billy as i don t believe in turning a blind eye to such important issues . i wish you all the luck in the world in your brilliant work , but anything put under a microscope will show faults & defects its a matter in my view of risk assessing to achieve a managable & achievable balance ? sara x

I have forwarded this GREY/CANCER statement to an eqine geneticist and am awaiting a response
i ve no doubts there are STUDIES in progress INVESTIGATING the link between GREY & MELANOMASas this would make sense as its been a widely shared theory for many years that GREYS CAN BE MORE PRONE TO MELANOMAS ( but there would probably have to be other factors involved as well......after all CANCER has eluded the worlds best scientists for years .....although thankfully due to RESEARCH more & more is being learnt all the time ).The fact that she mentions ADALUSIANS at the end make s me WONDER IF she could be referring to a study thats been done on a cross section of ADALUSIAN GREYS ?????? IF this is the case due to the fact MANY ADALUSIAN horses have been breed purposely to be GREY ........then MAYBE this has lead to a much higher than AVERAGE GREY X GREY breeding and IF GREYS CAN BE MORE SUPSCEPTIBLE TO MELANOMAS IT MAY BE A MORE EXTREME PROBLEM IN A BREED THAT MAY HAVE A HIGHER % THAN AVERAGE OF HOMOZYGOUS GREYS ( + SOME ADDITIONAL FACTOR "X" AS AS SASHA POINTS OUT THERE DOESN T APEAR TO BE A PROBLEM WITHIN LIPIZANER BREEDING )???????? just a THEORY i ve come up with NOT FACT !
I honestly DON T BELIEVE enough is known YET to make such a STRONG STATEMENT & PUT IT ACROSS AS FACT

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x

here s the link i was sent to SHIELA ARCHERS site "THE APPALOOSA PROJECT" many of you will already be familiar with it & already members ,i had intended to join again as i had been when it was FREE on YAHOO but now its by subscription i don t think i will be
http://www.appaloosaproject.info/index.php?module=phatform&PHAT_MAN_OP=View&PHAT_FORM_ID=2&MMN_position=14:14

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life without horses & chocolate just wouldn t be worth living!
sarah x