# Roan Color Question



## chelsboers (Mar 25, 2010)

Can someone explain roaning to me? I have a buck who was born solid red with one white spot on his foot. At about six months I noticed was starting to get white hairs mixed in along his back, like a saddle. Now that he is shedding his winter coat he has white all along his neck and back. Would he be considered some type of roan? I don't know if it matters but both his parents were dapple. If he is then does that mean that later his kids could lose the solid red and turn roan also? 
The pictures aren't the greatest because he is still shedding and I zoomed in but you can see the white and when pet him I can see the white goes half way down his body and up his neck. He doesn't have any on his legs and his tail just has a white spot on the tip


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## spidy1 (Jan 9, 2014)

Max Boer Goats has a tid-bit of info on roan, it comes from the dapple gene I believe.


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## Crossroads Boers (Feb 19, 2011)

I don't understand it, but it sure is pretty!  

I have a doe who is VERY roan right behind her front legs and half way down her body. Her dam was a paint but was very roan on her front end red. The paint doe's dam was a dapple head doe... but I think the paint got the roan from her sire as he was also a paint with some roaning and no spots in his lines. I think it's just like any other color that get's passed down...?? 

You can see the lighter colored line on the red doe about half way down her body. Up close there are a whole bunch of white hairs mixed in... but non on the other half of her! The paint doe, her dam, has roaning right behind her front legs on the red.


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## chelsboers (Mar 25, 2010)

I looked at Max Boer goats site so I guess maybe it comes from the dappled gene and could mean that there is potential for his kids to be dappled. The breeder said the only way to know for sure would be to breed him to a solid colored doe that has no dapples in her pedigree.
My buck is like the red doe of Crossroads. He is darker on the bottom but the top is now light red because of all the white hairs.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

All I know is that's kinda cool!!! I never really saw that before. I also know trying to figure out color will drive you crazy  


Sent from my iPhone using Goat Forum


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

AFAIK roaning is a simple dominance gene, with no relation to other spotting. It can be expressed in various degrees. I have a heavily roaned buck with a small white patch on his belly; this year he threw a doeling with the belly spot and light roaning. His other kids have not had roaning to the best of my knowledge - one last year was light cream so I couldn't swear whether or not he was roan.

MTA: sometimes paint and white spotting can have roaning at the edges of the pattern, but it's not related to the true roan gene that occurs on otherwise solid goats.


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## chelsboers (Mar 25, 2010)

Wild Hearts Ranch said:


> MTA: sometimes paint and white spotting can have roaning at the edges of the pattern, but it's not related to the true roan gene that occurs on otherwise solid goats.


Is it normal for them to take so long for the roan color to develop or does it usually show up when they are kids?


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

My doeling was born with it. I think on yours it's just random sprinkling and not true roan. Any goat (or other animal) can occasionally have a few white hairs without a specific genetic cause. Gray horses develop over time but I've never heard of it in goats.


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## MsScamp (Feb 1, 2010)

As I understand it, roaning is a specific color pattern in which the 'background'(for lack of a better word) white and there are colored hairs - red, blue, or black, usually - mixed into it. An animal can be born with a roan color pattern, or it can develop later. I have several girls who were born with traditional markings, but have developed roaning anywhere from a few months to a few years of age.


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## sassykat6181 (Nov 28, 2012)

I don't have boers, yet , but this is roan in my little ND buckling


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## BlaqueUnicornAdventures (May 14, 2014)

I am new I goats, but they do seem to parallel my area of expertise, which is horses, especially with the roan variants.

With horses (and most livestock) "Roan" is defined, somewhat loosely, as an intermixing of white hairs. That leaves much room for "interpretation" and in the last decade or so the understanding of genetics has significantly streamlined out understanding of different genetic "recipes" for making the mixing of white hairs with a "base color".

I haven't yet seen this in goats (still pretty new) but the GREY gene in horses is often misidentified as "roan", as it does involve mixing of white hairs, however this color is progressive and the animals tend to present this as swiftly and progressively becoming more and more white over their lifetimes (usually fairly rapidly) after which time they are usually just known as "grey" or "white". It is controlled by a simple dominant gene.

The "Classic Roan" is a permanent color. It basically involves the main body of the animal and leaves the extremities more or less "normal colored" while the white hairs mixing with the base coat give its main body a "silvery pastel" appearance. (The pygmy goat people call it "Agouti") like grey in horses, it appears to be a simple dominant gene. Having said that, roan horses (and less noticeably goats) do vary from season to season with just how much silver they have in their bodies, it seems to change slightly with each shedding. I know of one horse who is silver most years, but some years he has almost no noticeable silver in him at all and looks like a normal dark bay horse... Then he will shed and be all silver bodied again a few months later. They also vary from individual to individual just how much silver they are... Some are almost totally white bodies and some are just barely "frosted" but the pattern is the same: dark head, legs (below the knee) manes and tails and silvery pastel bodies.

Another variant of the "white hairs mixing" is not uncommon in Quarter Horses and Arabians, which is a different gene than the identified "classic roan" gene, is called "Rabicano" (sometimes "Rubicano") and it involves largely the "creases" of the animal developing the "roaning" (mixing of white hair) for example the flanks and armpits, base of the tail, etc. this form is also called "Frosting"

There is another gene called "Sabino" that is similar to Rabicano, which is known to cause "irregularities" in white markings, making them have twisty "jagged edges" and even fading the whole body of the animal into a pastel shade EVENLY (instead of in specific "zones" like Rabicano and classic roan) and this is not a "dilute" as the "fading" effect on the color is not from each hair but rather from a mixing of white hairs in with the regular base color rendering it a "pastel" version of the base color. (It is also not fully understood, and may be a collection of "modifying genes" involved)

Another variety effects "broken colors" (paints and Appys) where the edges of the colored zone of hair is "roaned" (blended) where it meets up with the white hair zones. Normally these are clearly defined areas and this form of it basically "blurs the lines" slightly. This is not a mechanism I am well acquainted with the inheritance of, but it is not uncommon and I have seen numerous examples of it.
It appears to be similar to the "frosting" effects of Rabicano, but may be genetically completely unrelated.

There are also a number of variants in the "Leopard complex" (Appaloosa) patterns and their various expressions. I think the most obvious parallel between this collection or NOT WELL UNDERSTOOD (genetically) colors in horses and in goats would be "Moon spotted" or "Dappled" goats.
I work closely with an Appy breeder who loves the total randomness of what you will get. Sometimes it is a "FEW SPOT" that looks basically normal with a small almost imperceptible expression of the gene. And sometimes you get horses who are completely loud and wild looking with polka dots of all kinda and sizes everywhere. 

There are some recognizable "typical expressions" that range from a dark animal with white spots ("snowflake"), to a white animal with dark spots ("leopard"), to an animal with mostly solid color and maybe some microscopic collection of 2 or 3 "off color" hairs or skin mottling ("Minimum expression"), to horses who are almost a complete reverse of the Rabicano roan pattern ("Varnish roan"), to wildly crazy random looking spots all over of both white polka dots on dark zones and dark polka dots on white zones, and even "dilute" color spots on dark or white backgrounds.

The thing with the "Leopard Complex" (in horses, but appearing to be similar with goats) is that as long as the Leopard complex gene is present the presentation of the babie will be largely random. You can breed a blanket Appy to a blanket Appy and get a Leopard, Snowflake, Varnish, etc. the expression of it is completely random so far as we understand it now.

The only thing that is really understood is that there are Heterozygous (1 copy of the gene) and Homozygous (2 copies -1 from each parent) forms of it. and the homozygous forms are crazier looking (to the point of being almost completely white ("Few spot" or "Snowcap") as I said it may be different in horses, but it sure seems to follow very similar rules!

Now there are also COMBINATIONS of the above genes as well! Those are the separately understood forms of it, an animal CAN present with any combination of the various genes or even ALL of them at once! They are separate elements so you can see them combined eater easily.

I can add photos or photo links later (more time and easier interface than my iPhone to better explain


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## Ryann (May 29, 2013)

This is a doeling I had born here this year her roaned cape is getting lighter and lighter...we gave her a bath last week before the show and the darker color really showed beneath all that hair... I am wondering how much different she will look once we shave her...wondering if this is the case with all roaned animals..could it explain why the original poster is seeing more white now as the goat gets older and the hair grows out?


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

The pygmy "agouti" is truly an expression of the agouti locus, the same one that creates bay horses. While the phenotype closely resembles roan they're genetically unrelated.


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## BlaqueUnicornAdventures (May 14, 2014)

So peculiar, since the colors seem to behave the same way in both species.
I would have thought bay in horses was more closely related to the Chamoisee color as when you look at say Oberhasilis they look like bay horse. And since the bay in horses (agouti locus) doesn't usually cause the white intermixing of hairs tha creates the silvery pastel body colors. Perhaps the true roan in horses is on a similar locale? I do know they identified the specific gene for it quite recently, but I am not sure where they located it at in the sequence. It is such a strongly parallel coloration in every way


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## BlaqueUnicornAdventures (May 14, 2014)

-side note- apparently my iPhone app only displays one of multiple photos uploaded :-/


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Horses only have four options at the agouti locus - solid, standard bay, seal brown, and wildtype bay. Goats have over 20!! The pygmy agouti does express very similarly to roan; agouti controls the location of dark and white pigment and in that case distributes it fairly evenly with the exception of the points. There is another allele immediately dominant to that which causes distribution across the body including the points - like a gray horse, but consistent throughout the lifespan.


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