This website is owned and created by Nancy Kerson, a private citizen. Information about BLM adoptions is offered as a service, to help mustangs find homes.
Please direct adoption questions to the BLM, not to me. And we sure as heck are not a Mustang car dealership! | This website:
Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
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 " |
VIDEOS OF INTEREST TO MUSTANG & BURRO ADOPTERS:
Kitty Lauman:
From Wild to Willing: Using the Bamboo Pole to Gentle Mustangs
More from Lauman Training available now!DVD or VHS
(2-DVD or 2-VHS set) almost 3 hours of instruction! $49.95 plus $5 shipping/handling = $54.95 total 
Lesley Neuman:
The First Touch
Gentling Your Mustang
$45.00
Lesley works with 3 wild horses at a BLM adoption, and very clearly explains what is happening, what she is doing, & what she sees in each horse as it progresses. Study this video and you can learn "pressure and release" gentling techniques to gentle your own new mustang! 
Help for Burro adopters!
Crystal Ward
Donkey Training
All the basics of gentling, handling, and training. A MUST for new burro adopters! Good for domestic donkeys, too! Can't do Paypal?
No Problem!
Just Call TOLL FREE
1-877-345-6748
(1-877-FILMS4U)
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Can't do Paypal?
No Problem!
Just Call TOLL FREE
1-877-345-6748
(1-877-FILMS4U)
 
If you don't want to buy online, Call TOLL FREE
1-877-345-6748
(1-877-FILMS4U)
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Our "Wild" Horse Herd
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Mustang & Burro Events Lewis & Clark Mustang History, part 2 | | DUN
Red dun mustang from the Maverick-Medicine Herd Management Area in NevadaUp | Champagne | The Creme Gene | Dun | Silver Dapples | Dun or Buckskin? A Quick Overview of Horse Genetics | Horse Color Genetics Charts 2 | Equine Base Colors | Dominant Horse Color Genes | The Dilution Genes | Recessive Color Genes Buckskin vs Dun 
"Diego" a dun Kiger mustang owned by Kim Bauer
(Check out that cobwebbing on his chest)
These two grulla fillies, adopted by Diane Pinney illustrate a range of grulla coloration.
| Dun is a "dilution" gene (like Creme, Champagne, and Silver Dapples) which modifies but does not fundamentally change the base color. Unlike Creme, it is a simple Dominant, meaning that the color effect is the same whether the individual has one or two Dun genes. Dun Markings:
Any individual horse may have most, but not necessarily all of these traits: diluted body color, somewhat like that of the Creme gene (this one is a MUST-HAVE) dorsal stripe (this one is a MUST-HAVE) zebra stripes on knees and hocks ear lining and tips: top one-third of the ear on its back side darker than body color fawn color inside of ears mane and tail lined with lighter color (2-color mane & tail) cob-webbing on face face darker than body color Dappling is not associated with the Dun gene (although many owners of duns report that their horses are dappled!)
Kim Bauer riding a Grullo horse
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Here's how Dun affects the various Base Colors: | BASE COLOR | WITH DUN | | RED | 
 
Red Dun | | BAY |  
left: "Max," a Sulphur mustang
Right: A bay dun mustang from the Maverick-Medicine HMA in Nevada
Bay Dun, aka Classic Dun or "Zebra Dun"
| BLACK
"Grullo or Grulla" | 
Calico Mountains grullo yearling
Grullo mustang in Colorado
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Matt Fournier on Steens Vaquero
Grullo mustang in Oregon
| Black Dun aka "Grullo" ("Grulla" if female)
Other modifiers, such as "Sooty" as well as variations in local soil and forage chemistry, may also be present to create a unique soft "mouse grey" "hot chocolate," or "olive" color. The darkest grullos are called "Lobo" duns, and the lightest are called "Silver Grullos." | Buckskin
"Dunskin" | 
Granite Range HMA buckskin duns at Palomino Valley BLM Corrals  
Lark, Granite Range HMA mustang adopted by Dave & Ginny Freeman of CA
| Palomino
"Dunalino"
Also called "Linebacked Palominos" |  
Enloe Quarter Horses
| Other Dun Terms & Variations | "Claybank Dun" | This is a common term, but there does not seem to be agreement as to what it is. I've read everything from "The palest form of red dun" to "like a very pale buckskin dun with points that are not quite black" to simply "also called red dun" | Any other color or color combination can have Dun. | Yes, Pintos can be Dun, too! |  Hailey's Comet, owned by Ingrid Verwer, Netherlands 
"Dixie Chick" a grulla pinto filly, adopted by Greg Schultz in Oregon
Crow, a South Steens HMA mustang
| | Dun and Silver Dapples |  
Tinkerbelle, a Silver Dapple Dun owned by Lipizzan Lady |
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Sulphur Springs mustangs at an adoption
There are certain Wild Horse Herd Management Areas within the American West - most notably the Sulphur Springs in southwestern Utah, Kiger/Riddle in Oregon the Pryor Mountains in Montana, and the Carter Reservoir herd in California/Nevada - that are well-known for their beautiful Dun colored horses. Horses from these areas are not exclusively dun, like the Fjord breed of draft ponies, for instance - but well-marked duns occur in significant numbers in these herds, along with the bays, blacks and reds that make up the base colors.
For a herd or breed to be dun 100% of the time, every individual would have to be homozygous for dun coloring, which is currently not the case with the wild herds, and culling them for color, when their numbers are already fairly low, is problematic. Herds like the Kiger, whose reputations have been built around the Dun factor, have a marketing problem for their bays, blacks, grays and reds. The Sulphur Springs herd aficionados have made the intelligent choice to value all the colors that are present, and to recognize that the black or bay or red horse standing next to the dun one, has exactly the same heritage and genetics as its dun brother or sister.
"Gato" a Kiger horse owned by Kim Bauer 
Carter Reservoir mustangs (photo courtesy of Jona Kalayjian)
ARE DUN HORSES MORE PRIMITIVE, ANCIENT, PURE SPANISH, etc THAN OTHERS?Dun (along with bay, black, red, roan, the pinto/paint patterns and probably gray and leopard appaloosa) came to America with the Spanish Conquistadores in the 1500's. However, non-dun horses can be just as pure "old Spanish" as duns. AND duns can occur in several breeds, such as the American Quarter Horse and Norwegian Fjord. Dun is valued for its exotic appearance, and, in Mustangs and Quarter Horses, it is indicative of at least some Old Spanish lineage. (While some modern non-Spanish horses, such as the Fjord, are also dun, these are not known to have contributed to mustang gene pools) Dun's association with being "primitive" or "ancient" is likely because some very old breeds of horses, such as Mongolian horses and the very ancient Przewalski's Horse, and some old breeds of European Draft horses, are duns. There is really nothing primitive, however, about today's modern dun-colored horses. 
Pryor Mountain horses
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Rhonda Groves and Oregon (non-Kiger) dun mustang, "Latte" | 
Pamela Fyffe & her mare from Sulphur Springs HMA | 
Andi Harmon's Lobo Dun mare, "Star" | 
Grullo Stud Horse from Twin Peaks HMA on BLM Internet Adoption
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Gus, day adopted by Sherry Timm - note yellowish baby coat | 
Two years later, Gus in full Grullo coloring | 
Grullo Overo gelding at National Wild Horse & Burro Show, Reno, NV, June 2001 | 
Soft Coffee-Cream Grulla mare and foal at Palomino Valley | Black-based Grullo foals often start out yellowish, and darken as they mature.
This yellow-ish colt shed out to full-fledged Grullo. |
 
DUN vs COUNTERSHADING: Some horses appear to have a dorsal stripe, but it either disappears upon maturity, or with seasonal shedding. Bays commonly have a "line-back" which also is not a true dorsal stripe. This coloring is called called "counter-shading", a function of the "Sooty" gene, and it can be confusing to horse owners. See this link for more: Sooty Foals and Countershading |
Dun is a term often used to mean buckskin, and vice versa. For some breed registry associations that is a correct usage. For mustangs, the term Dun refers to horses with dun factor markings only. Here is a great website about this issue: BUCKSKIN vs DUN  
Sulphur Springs, Utah, wild horses at an adoption;
Photos: Lesley Neuman  
Grullos from the Calico Mtns HMA, an area not (yet anyway) identified as being of any particular Old Spanish origin
IF YOU HAVE A DUN MUSTANG AND ARE INTERESTED IN REGISTERING IT, HERE'S A HELPFUL LINK:
http://www.desertduns.com/index.htm For Carter Reservoir horses: CARTER RESERVOIR REGISTRY |
A Quick Overview of Horse Genetics Horse Color Genetics Charts 2 Equine Base Colors Dominant Horse Color Genes The Dilution Genes Recessive Color Genes  Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron
 
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