DunGenes.org
a Hippo-Logistics web

Hair Types

Back Home Up

Other links are at bottom and/or right of page

 

Different Types of Horse Hair 

Below is the beginning of a classification of different types of hair on horses, and how they react to color-modifying genes.

bullet

black tail hair -- seemingly the last to dilute, except for its guard hairs.  

bullet

red tail hair -- dilutes to white with single cream and also usually with single champagne ; does not dilute with dun (except for its guard hairs). 

bullet

black mane hair -- next to last (as in flaxens that are mane-only. How many horses are flaxen-tailed only, except for when it's caused by a spotting gene?) Same with the Silver dilution.

bullet

mane & tail guard hairs -- tend to go nearly white in the presence of practically any dilution gene

bullet

lower leg hair -- it dilutes with double dream, even more with champagne, but not with dun or single cream.

bullet

dorsal (over the spine) hair -- tends to be darker than body hair, resists dilution more than body hair, especially when "sooty" hairs are present.

bullet

regular body hair -- it dilutes a moderate, "normal" amount. The color that we usually refer to.

bullet

easily-diluted body hair -- what becomes the "roaning" in a Palomino or buckskin. Dilutes to an ivory color with only one cream gene.

bullet

"sootiness hairs" -- diluted by some genes and not by others. Possibly correspond to "guard" hairs? Just a hunch.  

bullet

dapple hairs, which have a different texture than non-dapple, and dilute differently with cream than with dun or champagne.

 
bullet

grey hair -- seems like it can be any of the above ; ranges from a some pigment left to completely clear, like glass.

bullet

markings hair -- again, any of the above ; hair in a white marking loses all of its pigment, becoming clear as glass, like a gray hair.

 

Home Up Pigment Hair Types


To join our "dungenes" discussion and photo-sharing email group, click HERE.

 

This web site created with delight by Hippo-Logistics
© 2007 Barbara A. Kostelnik