Mustangs 4 Us

Home   l   Mustang/Wild Horse History   l   Mustang Heritage   l   Adopt a Mustang! (Wild Horse, not the Car!) l    Wild Horse & Burro Watching   l   Gentling and Training Wild Horses   l   Burros   l   Mustang Mules   l   Our "Wild " Herd   l   Wild Horse & Burro Herd Areas/ Where the Wild Things Are   l    Mustang * Horse Colors   l   Helpful Videos   l   Events   l   Links   l   "Free to Good Home" I "Working With Wild Horses" Book Sale

BUY THE BOOK!

Working with Wild Horses
Second (Improved) Edition
A Handbook of
Gentling and Training Tips
By Nancy Kerson

Paperback $22 or
Downloadable E-Book $7.50
 

This website is owned and created by Nancy Kerson, a private citizen - I am not the BLM or any other branch of government!

Information about BLM adoptions is offered as a service, to help mustangs find homes and to promote public appreciation of wild horses and burros.

Please direct adoption questions to the BLM, not to me.

And I sure as heck am not a Mustang car dealership!

I have NO horses or burros for sale and am not interested in buying or listing or otherwise promoting your sale animals!

This website:
Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
All Rights Reserved.
I am happy to share, but please give me a credit when you "borrow" things off my website! Thanks! Just say, "author, Nancy Kerson www.mustangs4us.com "

The DILUTION GENES are so-called because they DILUTE
(Think "Bleach"), rather than fundamentally change the base color.

There are five currently known dilution genes: Cream, Champagne, Dun, Pearl and Silver.

Champage, Dun, and Silver are dominant, meaning that a horse need only have one in order to have the characteristic diluted coat pattern. Whether the horse is heterozygous or homozygous for champagne, dun, or silver, the dilution effect is the same. (Without genetic testing, these colors are problematic to breed for, since you cannot tell fromthe horse's appearance whether or not it will pass the color on to offspring. Only homozygous horses will pass on the color pattern to 100% of offspring)

Cream is an "incomplete dominant" which means that the dilution effect is stronger with two doses (homozygous, two cream genes, one from each parent) than if the horse has only one (from one parent - heterozygous). A single copy of Cream produces palominos, buckskins and smoky blacks (depending on the base coat that is being diluted). Two doses of Cream produce cremellos, perlinos and smoky creams.

Pearl (known in Quarter Horses as "Barlink") is recessive, or perhaps an incomplete recessive; In order to take effect, the Pearl gene needs to be either homozygous, (2 genes - both genes on the pair being Pearl) or heterozygous (1) in accompaniment with another dilution gene, such as Cream or Champagne. Some people say they can discern a slight effect with just one copy, so Pearl may be an incomplete recessive.

The Dilution Genes include: Champagne Creme Dun Silver Dapples Pearl

CHAMPAGNE Champagne on Red	CREME Palomino Single Creme on Red	DUN Dun on Red: Red Dun	SILVER Silver on Red: No effect	PEARL Pearl on Red: No effect, or perhaps barely perceptible: Pearl on Liver Chestnut
IVORY Champagne with Creme on Red	photo: Ginny Freeman Cremello Double Creme on Red	Dun on Buckskin	Silver with Cream and red: unknown	Pearl with Cream on red: pale, pale-eyed, metallic palomino effect
Champagne on Bay	Buckskin (Single Creme on Bay)	photo: Sandra Schluter Bay (Zebra) Dun	(photos: Fran Odom www.mountainhorses.com) Silver & Bay	Pearl on Bay:
Champagne Eye	Perlino (Creme on Buckskin) Photo by Andi Harmon of Greg Schultz' mustangs	Duns showing bay base and perhaps added cream dilution
		Dun on Bay: Zebra Dun
Champagne on Black	Smoky Black Tobiano Creme on Black with Tobiano  - Bonnie Graham	Dun on Black: Grullo	Silver on Black	Pearl on Black: Pearl with Cream on Black

NOTE: The AQHA has recently fixed a number of mistakes from about 20 years ago (decisions made before modern genetic information was available). They used to say that Buckskins had a dorsal stripe and Duns didn't. That is why you see so many Duns by Palominos and those Duns going on to produce Palominos.
 

Other Pages In the Color Section of this Website:

The Base Colors: Champagne | Creme | Dun | Silver Dapples | Pearl

Major Headings: A Quick Overview of Horse Genetics | Horse Color Genetics Charts 2 | Equine Base Colors | Dominant Horse Color Genes | The Dilution Genes | Recessive Color Genes | Miscellaneous Color Issues | Curlies (not a color, but...)

The Single Dominant Genes: Agouti | Appaloosa | Brindle |Champagne | Dun | Grey | Pangare | Pintos | Rabicano | Roans & Roaning | Silver | Sooty |

The Pinto Patterns: Tobiano | The Overo Complex: Frame | Sabino | Splash | Tovero

The Incomplete Dominant Genes:  Creme

The Recessive Genes: Red | Flaxen

Colors with multiple genetic bases: Blue | Brown | White | Roan-like Effects

Buckskin vs Dun
 

Color genetics are the same for all horses, regardless of breed or ancestry.

Since this is a Mustang website,
I use and prefer pictures of wild, or formerly-wild horses wherever possible.