PART ONE: Genetic tests
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So to start off with, what the heck are genetic tests in the first place? A genetic test allows us to see what colour and pattern genes the horse carries, as well as how many copies of them.
First we are going to do a gene test on a horse. This is the horse in question.
Notice beside her sales history here is blank.
Next we click on manage your horse, click on genetic test, then click the submit button.
Once we've clicked on this we'll now see that a new button has appeared on the horse's page.
Now we'll click on this, which will bring up the gene test!
So, take a quick skim through the gene test and familiarise yourself with the different sections.
Part 1:1 Extensions and Agouti
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Extensions determines what the base colour will be by allowing black pigment to be expressed in the coat. ee is chestnut, Ee and EE can be either bay or brown or black.
ee = chestnut
Ee/EE = bay, brown, and black
Agouti determines what colour the horse will be if it is not chestnut by controlling the distribution and location of black in the horse's coat. If it is chestnut then it can carry any of the following because the agouti is irrelevant to the coat colour as it doesn't have any affect on chestnuts.
AA and Aa = bay
Ata and Atat = brown
aa = black
Part 1:2 Patterns and Other Genes
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Anything with all lowercase letters is a gene she doesn't have, so this mare does not carry roan (rnrn) dun (dd) champagne (chch) grey (gg) white (ww) sabino (sbsb) frame (oo) or PATN-1 (patn-1patn-1).
There are however two exceptions to the lowercase rule. And those are the cream genes and the pearl genes.
Cream (CC) means they do not carry cream, one copy of cream will look like CcrC, and two copies look like CcrCcr.
Pearl is a recessive gene, so if the horse has PrlPrl it does not carry it, Prlprl means it has one copy, and prlprl means the horse carries two copies of it.
Back to our example gene test.. this mare has heterogygous (single copy) genes of silver (Zz) splash white (Splspl) rabicano (Rbrb)
And she has homozygous (double copies) of tobiano (ToTo) leopard complex/appaloosa (LpLp) and PATN-2 (PATN-2PATN-2)
Since she carries one copy of the splash white gene (Splspl) that gene is heterogynous. She carries two copies of the leopard complex (LpLp) which makes it homozygous, which means she is guarenteed to pass one copy of the appaloosa gene to her offspring.
Heterozygous genes means the horse carries one copy of a gene, and homozygous means they carry two copies of that gene and guarentee that their offspring will inherit that gene from them. So her foals are guaranteed to inherit tobiano, appaloosa, and P2
Anything in phenotype does not get passed down to offspring, it's randomised. Brindle should technically be in there too since it is not inheritable. We'll come back to it later with some more examples of phenotype genes :D
Part 1:3 Recap
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To recap
- extensions are the base colour, agouti is the gene that determines what
- colour the horse will be if it is not a chestnut
-the different colour patterns are what give the horses patterns
-the pattern genes at the bottoms of the page (P1, P2) affects what appaloosa and tobiano patterns the horse has. (fun fact, horses can have Lplp/LpLp that doesn't show up in their coats if they don't have have any pattern genes)
-phenotypes are random and do not get passed down to offspring
Steady Rain all Day
