# Goat coat color genetics



## Sydmurph (Jun 4, 2013)

Hey all, does anyone know where to find the genetics experts on here? I have a question about coat color genetics and am not sure who/where to approach. Any suggestions would be great! Not sure how complicated it is for goats, my only experience with this kind of stuff is in the poultry world...
Thanks


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Google Phil Spoonenburg. He's the only goat geneticist that I know of.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

What's your question? I'm not geneticist but I've done a LOT of reading about color genetics.


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## GATA_Goats (Sep 19, 2013)

This has always confused me too. I've been told that you cannot determine the color of the kids by the parents. That and my Nigerian Dwarf's seem to come out like cats. All of the different looking.


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## IndiaJoy (Mar 10, 2014)

I can try to answer. I'm not an expert, not even close, but I've done quite a bit of research into goat color genetics.


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## Sydmurph (Jun 4, 2013)

Thanks for all the offers of help! I'm so used to poultry genetics and knowing exactly what my offspring will be in breeding I can't help but want to know same with the goaties! My solid doe is bred to a solid buck, so just trying to guess at what the possible kid colour will be. Buck is what I would call chocolate, and my doe is white, but close up has a bit of a wheaten/beige to her fur. I can assume the choc = black + a diluter, but I can't seem to figure out the genotype for the cream doe. 
I can post pics of their coats if that helps.
I also know the sire of the doe and the dam of the buck, if that helps?


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Cream is a dominant red, plus dilution. The dominant red (which is an agouti allele) can be expressed as anything from a red/strawberry blond to pure white depending on the dilution factors. Saanens, Golden Guernseys, and the buck in my picture are all examples of this. 

The thing about the dominant red is that since they carry two agouti alleles, the other allele is recessive to the red and can be literally anything. There's no telling what might pop out!

You are correct about the buck being a diluted black. Black however is a recessive gene - the most recessive of the agouti alleles, so that is the only thing he will throw. He may or may not throw the chocolate modifier. 

In terms of expression at the agouti locus, lighter colors are dominant to darker ones. So the more light colors a pattern has, the more likely it is to be expressed. It's not too likely (although not impossible) that the dam carries a recessive black under her dominant red, so my guess would be that kids are likely to come out either some shade of red/gold/cream, or whatever her recessive allele is. Chamoisee is the best bet as it's the "wild type" allele.

If you have pictures of your goats and their parents I can make additional guesses, but with recessive alleles they can only be proven through offspring. I still don't know for sure what recessive my buck carries because he's only had red and chamoisee kids, from chamoisee does.


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Chamoisee is the badgerface allele. The wild type is Bezoar. They are often confused and Bezoars are often claimed to be Chamoisee. They are not interchangable however and Bezoar will never throw a badgerface marked kid.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Thanks for correcting me. I've seen them used interchangeably but you're correct, they are different patterns. HOWEVER, I don't believe it's true that a bezoar could not throw a chamoisee - since it's recessive to the wild type, they could be a carrier of that allele. And I bet most people would never know the difference.

MTA: I find it interesting that there is no mention of the bezoar color in Nigerian terminology. I'm sure it must pop up since Nigerians carry virtually every color imaginable, and I know it's common in Nubians. What does ADGA call it?

Also, what's your opinion on true white spotting? It doesn't seem accurate to call it "scattered white" if they're clearly round spots.


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Maybe I should have said, in my experience. In the years of using my Bezoar buck, he has NEVER thrown anything except different colors of Bezoar. If the kid is given one gene of Bezoar, that is the color pattern that it will express.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Not true - as I said before, the light colors are dominant. My bezoar spotted doe threw a roan bezoar doeling and a red spotted buckling this year, bred to my gold roan buck. Last year she had a single red spotted buckling.

Sable, black mask, and caramel are also dominant to bezoar.

MTA (because I'm always forgetting something): if your buck is only throwing bezoar, it's likely that A) he is homozygous for that allele and B) your does don't carry any of the more dominant colors. Or C) you just haven't bred him enough times for the alleles to sort out


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Well yes, roaning is dominate but has nothing to do with color or color pattern. Some spotting is also dominate. but, these only cover the expression of the base color pattern. They are modifiers that change expression.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Yes, but what I was pointing out is that the bezoar doe has thrown two red kids, because the sire carries dominant red. He's thrown roughly half and half red/gold/cream to bezoar, but the dams have all been bezoar so I don't know if he carries that or something else.


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Oh okay, it's my understanding that Bezoar is the default color. In the absence of any other gene, all goats will be this color. So your buck has the red gene which deactivates or covers the agouti lotus in half his kids. So the other gene he carries allows agouti. To make it more fun, goats can flip the agouti gene creating patterns like black and tan. 
It could be the Murine lotus as well...

The murine Agouti locus patterns exhibit no reversal of pigment type among the alleles, so that regions 
which have become phaeomelanic from the action of more recessive alleles retain this pigment type in all 
patterns determined by the more dominant alleles. In this regard the murine Agouti locus acts as though 
the various alleles were simply shifting melanin production in an orderly stepwise progression from one 
extreme to the other, adding phaeomelanic areas body region by body region. The more dominant alleles 
result in phenotypes that are entirely phaeomelanic, while the most recessive alleles have phenotypes 
that are entirely eumelanic. The stepwise progress of Agouti locus patterns gave rise to early hypotheses 
that the locus was a complex of small loci that each controlled pigment type in only a specific body region. 
Recent studies have shown that the complex hypotheses are mistaken, and that the locus is indeed 
single and simple rather than an array of miniloci (Jackson, 1994).


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

That made my head spin, but I think it's saying the same thing I'm trying to. The bezoar is not so much a "default" as it is simply the most common allele - because an allele like black and tan or true black can be present and overriden by the bezoar. These colors are not a "flipping" of the allele, but also a separate allele unto themselves. As your quote says any phaeomelanic area is dominant to eumalanin, which means in rare cases two patterns can be visible at once when the phaeomelanin occurs in different locations. 

The red in my buck is not "covering" the agouti locus, it is in itself an allele at the agouti locus which codes for entirely phaeomelanic phenotype. So it's the eumalanin that's being overriden. His other allele is either bezoar, or something that's recessive to bezoar. If he never throws anything darker than bezoar or throws bezoar on a darker doe I can assume that he carries the bezoar; if he throws a darker color that would be his other allele.

I bet the OP didn't know they were opening Pandora's box, lol.


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Ah, the OP will figure out how much fun this is as they learn more. There is so little written on goat genetics that bouncing stuff off each other is all we have.

The action of Agouti locus alleles in goats is not as neat and orderly as is the murine series. It is fairly 
common for the intermediate agouti patterns in goats to have reversals of pigmentation type, so that 
areas that are eumelanic in one pattern are phaemelanic in another, and vice versa. This reversal of 
pigmentation type results in some caprine patterns that appear to be opposites of one another, in contrast 
to the murine situation in which the Agouti locs patterns are characterized by a stepwise increase in 
phaeomelanic areas. The reversal of pigmentation patterns in caprine phenotypes is most remarkable in 
the "blackbelly" and "black and tan" patterns, which are nearly perfect opposites of one another in 
pigment distribution.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

In appearance, yes - your former post made it sound like there was some switch reversing the patterns. If you look at the order of dominance patterns there is an increase in phaeomelanic areas, but the location varies which is what complicates it.


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## Sydmurph (Jun 4, 2013)

Thought you might be interested to know my doe kidded a black buckling with white ears (just like dad). Apparently he was black at birth too and browned out as he grew in his 'real' coat. Lesson learned, the kid was absolutely not what I was expecting! Also has elf ears. 1/4 lamancha. Boy thats a strong gene as they say!


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## GATA_Goats (Sep 19, 2013)

Too cute!


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