OMG I think we bred a brindle!

Since we had a halfway cool, overcast day yesterday I went out to take some pictures of this year’s fillies. The oldest (nearly 4 months old) has completely shed her foal coat and what is showing now is… well… brindle.

It could be a seasonal brindle, or it could be permanent. Guess we shall see. :winkgrin:

ArtysCalendarGirl
Cali again

Cool, it will be interesting to see how she develops, nice girl whatever color she ends up as;)

I don’t think that’s a brindle. It looks like sooty foal shading. I have a brindle mare, real brindle with drippy looking tiger stripes. What you need to look for as the pattern changes is hair texture. My mares stripes have shorter hair than the surrounding, non-striped hair. It looks like canyons on her body.

Hers is seasonal BUT I can still see the coat texture in the winter but it’s very faint in her long winter coat.

Look at the flank striping picture here:
http://brindlehorses.com/stripedhos/count.htm

better pictures:
http://brindlehorses.com/

backinthesaddle, is yours a chimera?

[QUOTE=vineyridge;5682103]
backinthesaddle, is yours a chimera?[/QUOTE]

No. She’s seasonal and it’s only on her right side flank and part of the barrel. When I bought her, I didn’t know she was a brindle and was super surprised when she developed tiger stripes. lol

I’ll either link to the thread or post pics… which ever is easier to find. lol

I think the sooty gene has something to do with it. She’s chestnut, but a very sooty liver chestnut. The new foal isn’t brindle, I don’t think, and is very very sooty. She has stripes but I’ve been told they will disapper when she sheds the foal coat.

Pics of my mare in this thread:
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=258360&highlight=brindle

Pics of her fillies stripes here: http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=304482&highlight=brindle

It does look quite a bit like the sooty striping on this page:
http://www.brindlehorses.com/l3l13/characteristics/notbrin.htm

But still…where did it come from? Dam is liver chestnut, sire is bay.

That’s very cool!

It may well be a chimera. You could do some testing and find out :slight_smile:

[QUOTE=JB;5682302]
That’s very cool!

It may well be a chimera. You could do some testing and find out :)[/QUOTE]

I looked on the UC Davis site and Animal Genetics, Inc and couldn’t find anything on brindle or chimeraism. Would definitely test if there is such a test.

Well that is pretty cool looking. It almost looks like “zebra” stripes the way the pattern is!

Keep us posted on how her coat changes. It would be neat if she kept it!

Ah, sorry, no, there isn’t a test for the genetic brindling.

To see if it’s a chimera, you’d take several samples of hair, such as hairs from the stripes and hairs from the non stripes. It might not be a bad idea to also take name and tail hairs. I think that’s how one of the QH brindles was ID’d - mane hairs vs body hairs, but it might really have been striped hairs vs non-striped

[QUOTE=foxhavenfarm;5682369]
I looked on the UC Davis site and Animal Genetics, Inc and couldn’t find anything on brindle or chimeraism. Would definitely test if there is such a test.[/QUOTE]

Send them an email. $100. to test.

Rubi was tested and is not chimeraism. Which I suspected becasue none of her foals had registration issues. IF she had been a chimeraism, some of the foals could have come from the “other horse” in her. Had that happened, the dna parental test could have come back saying she wasn’t the mother of her own foals. (her dna is on file with the registry)

I’m very glad she tested negative becasue you woudn’t know what the “other horse” was like quality wise. Rubi herself is an excellent mare… what if “the other horse” inside her was opposite? I had some real worries while waiting for that test to come back. LOL :eek:

As to the tests: I think there’s a blood test involved so you need the vet. I could be wrong about this. Everything was done when the salmonella.founder happened so I may not be remembering correctly.

[QUOTE=back in the saddle;5682400]
Send them an email. $100. to test.

Rubi was tested and is not chimeraism. Which I suspected becasue none of her foals had registration issues. IF she had been a chimeraism, some of the foals could have come from the “other horse” in her. Had that happened, the dna parental test could have come back saying she wasn’t the mother of her own foals. (her dna is on file with the registry)

I’m very glad she tested negative becasue you woudn’t know what the “other horse” was like quality wise. Rubi herself is an excellent mare… what if “the other horse” inside her was opposite? I had some real worries while waiting for that test to come back. LOL :eek:[/QUOTE]

Not necessarily true at all. Chimerism can very well be limited to just a few cells. There was even a case of one mother whose only “different” cells were in her ovaries. So of course the same could be true of any other clump of cells. The chimerism could be limited to only the hair/skin.

People with two different colored eyes are chimeras. Think Kate Bosworth and David Bowie.

Chimerism is likely much more common than we realize.

[QUOTE=Hampton Bay;5682440]
Not necessarily true at all. Chimerism can very well be limited to just a few cells. There was even a case of one mother whose only “different” cells were in her ovaries. So of course the same could be true of any other clump of cells. The chimerism could be limited to only the hair/skin.

People with two different colored eyes are chimeras. Think Kate Bosworth and David Bowie.

Chimerism is likely much more common than we realize.[/QUOTE]

Not being chimerism eliminated any possibility of that problem.

http://www.horseforum.com/horse-articles/chimera-one-million-part-1-a-60817/

http://www.horseforum.com/horse-articles/chimera-one-million-part-2-a-61376/

[QUOTE=back in the saddle;5682471]
Not being chimerism eliminated any possibility of that problem.[/QUOTE]

My point was that being a chimera doesn’t mean that some foals will test as not being from that mare. The ovaries can very well be formed from one of the clumps of cells, so only have one set of DNa, and that set of DNa can very well match the DNa from the hairs sent in for sampling. Not having foals “rejected” by the registry means very little in relation to chimerism. It only takes a few cells with different DNa for an organism to be chimeric.

[QUOTE=foxhavenfarm;5682369]
I looked on the UC Davis site and Animal Genetics, Inc and couldn’t find anything on brindle or chimeraism. Would definitely test if there is such a test.[/QUOTE]

DNA testing - you take some from mane, some from cervical swabs and some from blood. Maybe also some skin samples. You would have to phone the lab and state you want to check for chimerism and they will tell you the kind of samples you need. If you get 2 DNA profiles, you have a chimera. When you send the samples in, you may also need to state on the package that you are specifically checking for chimerism so it helps the lab (follow their instructions in that regard - they may not want it stated either so blind results are pure). Labs are very careful in their testing protocols and do their due diligence with double and even triple testing if they think it necessary.

Chimerism results from there being twins, with one twin being absorbed by its sibling while in utero. No, not absorbed, that’s the wrong word - -they technically MERGE, but the weaker twin’s DNA only is present in certain organs. Usually, it results in certain parts of the body, such as the skin, having the DNA from the dominant twin (the living) and the sex organs might have the DNA of the absorbed twin. Or just a kidney, depends where it ends up.

It’s a problem when the DNA of the “absorbed” twin is in the sex organs, because offspring from chimerics will have a different DNA profile from the mother.

The only way to check is to obtain DNA from the sexual glands (cervical swabs) and compare to DNA from the skin and blood. ESPECIALLY important if you plan on breeding this mare in the future.

This problem just happened to a woman in the U.S. She nearly went to jail because the State claimed she was falsifying records because her kids did not have the DNA profile proving she was the mother. Turns out, she was chimeric and her absorbed twin’s DNA was in her ovaries and sexual organs (as proven by her cervical swabs), while her blood, skin, and swabs from her mouth showed a separate profile. This is only known to be in about 40-50 people in the entire world, but it presents a problem for science who at first thought DNA was an irreputable identifying factor in individualism. Chimerism is nature’s monkey wrench.

A mare may still be chimeric as the DNA in her kidneys (For example) may the only difference in the entire body and you’re not going to test her kidneys at all as that is far too invasive. However, from a breeding perspective, if you have a mare who has qualities and abilities you really like, it would be important that her skin and mane DNA is the same as her sex organs because it’s HER DNA you want passed on to her foals, not that of her absorbed, weak twin who could look like a mule for all you know.

[QUOTE=Hampton Bay;5683805]
My point was that being a chimera doesn’t mean that some foals will test as not being from that mare. The ovaries can very well be formed from one of the clumps of cells, so only have one set of DNa, and that set of DNa can very well match the DNa from the hairs sent in for sampling. Not having foals “rejected” by the registry means very little in relation to chimerism. It only takes a few cells with different DNa for an organism to be chimeric.[/QUOTE]

Gotcha… so said more correctly… she may be chimeric, but the dna from the repro system and “her” dna was the same; so for breeding purposes, Rubi is breeding the “real” Rubi.

UC Davis sends you a form specifically for this test with all the instructions on it. Personally, I’d wait to do the test until next year to see if the stripes stay and keep your $100. I don’t think the foal is brindle based on what I’ve seen. That pattern isn’t “drippy” or textured enough.

Not true. 2 different colored eyes is either
Heterochromia iridium (two different-colored eyes within a single individual) and heterochromia iridis (a variety of color within a single iris)

David Bowie has 2 blue eyes, one was injured and has a permanently dilated pupil. Jane Seymour has 2 different colored eyes as well as Dan Ackroyd