roans get permanent color?

[LPI]

We have a question about roan horse colors.
When do roans show their permanent coat color?
Thank you in advance to any and all who can help
answer this.

[Bob Markey]

Well, my 4yo roan is the same color this summer that she was last summer
when I bought her. She did turn much whiter over the winter with
her winter coat "on". I have been advised by others thru this group
that roans do grow white winter coats.

And I was so glad I didn't buy a grey horse so that I wouldn't have
to deal with the white shedding in the spring. :) Now I'm going to go
buy some white polar fleece clothing to wear next March and April so
that my blue and green clothes don't become white...

[ZT Employee]

My appy mare was born a solid bay, and at 3 yrs old is now a bay roan. I
think that she will end up being a leopard appy. Appys do tend to roan out
as they age; my 22 yr old gelding was a blanket appy, but now is almost
completely white! (I love to see the vet's description/drawings change
yearly on my horses' coggins tests)

We have a few other roans at my barn, and my experience has been that they
do get a little more roan every year.

[Junera]

In article <01bc8ad9$9f9c7ae0$3331...@crc3.concentric.net>, "ZT Employee"
<zeta...@cris.com> writes:

>(I love to see the vet's description/drawings change
>yearly on my horses' coggins tests)

LOL....I had one vet sit down for an hour, drawing each and every spot on
my leapord app filly, it was soooo funny! She even walked up to my filly
and counted "ok: one, two, three......thirty-four spots on this side....."

:) June

[Sylvana Smith]

Agreeing with ZT, who wrote:

<<My appy mare was born a solid bay, and at 3 yrs old is now a bay roan.
I think that she will end up being a leopard appy. Appys do tend to roan
out as they age; my 22 yr old gelding was a blanket appy, but now is

almost completely white! (I love to see the vet's description/drawings

change yearly on my horses' coggins tests)

We have a few other roans at my barn, and my experience has been that

they do get a little more roan every year.>>

----------------

My event horse, Zakarij, was born a rich chestnut with a star, was
strawberry roan through his third year, and has been graying up and
dappling more every year.

When he was five, I commissioned an oil portrait of him, for which the
portrait artist took 200+ photographs as reference. When I went to her
studio 18 months later to approve the almost-finished work, I was
stunned to see how much Zakarij had changed since his portrait
"sitting."

The artist, being a stickler for detail and faithful likenesses, agreed
to lighten up the horse's coat to match his present state, and the
finished portrait was lovely.

Now, I don't have air conditioning or heat at home (and the absence of
climate control is death on oil paintings), so the painting is kept
somewhere else and I see it rarely. The other day I saw it and was
surprised to see *how dark* the horse was. The color doesn't look like
Zakarij at all, who at age 8 is more of a dappled white than a dappled
gray!

Next time, I'll just commission a scanned photograph that can be
computer-manipulated every year as necessary!

--Watching All Those Lovely Dapples Disappear Each Year--Sylvana

[S.M.Willis]

It would seem some people are confusing the roan gene with the one that
causes greying.....grey horses (ANY color horse can be a 'grey')are born
very dark, and get progressively LIGHTER with age....eventually turning
white/near white. ROANS are born the lightest shade they will ever
be...then they get darker as they mature. A roan will always have a
solid colored head. This never gets 'lighter' - if your "roan" is
getting whiter in the muzzle/face area, then you own a "grey". It's
also true that a roan has a lighter winter coat....don't know what to
attribute this to.

(information partly gathered from the book, THE COLOR OF HORSES by Ben
K. Green)

Jaqui

[Sue Jefferys]

In article <33C115...@nt.com>, sylvan...@nt.com wrote:

#Agreeing with ZT, who wrote:
#
#<<My appy mare was born a solid bay, and at 3 yrs old is now a bay roan.
#I think that she will end up being a leopard appy. Appys do tend to roan
#out as they age; my 22 yr old gelding was a blanket appy, but now is
#almost completely white! (I love to see the vet's description/drawings
#change yearly on my horses' coggins tests)
#
#We have a few other roans at my barn, and my experience has been that
#they do get a little more roan every year.>>
#
#----------------
#
#My event horse, Zakarij, was born a rich chestnut with a star, was
#strawberry roan through his third year, and has been graying up and
#dappling more every year.
#

Sounds to me like these horses are GRAYS which do get progressively whiter
with each shedding and NOT ROANS whose amount of white hairs stays fairly
constant over the years. Roans tend to be more solid on the head, neck and
lower legs. Grays quite often will have more white hair on the head early
in the process. Gray is a color modification which can cover any other
color--ergo a bay that goes to gray or a chestnut that looks like a
strawberry roan on its way to gray. It's easy to confuse grays and roans
unless you watch them over the the years.

SueJ

--
Sue Jefferys
E-mail: s...@clyde.as.utexas.edu
Unlawful to use this email address for unsolicited ads: USC Title 47 Sec 227