HGG Community Forums

This is the only homozygous ice public breeding stallion. He will give ice foals every time.

hahaha I didnt realize I never actually pasted the link. WOOPS. Thank you rose!

Aspiration, the ice genes work just like any other gene.

1. Horses get two copies (alleles) of every gene, one from their sire and the other from their dam.

2. Intact horses pass on ONE of those copies (alleles) to each of their foals. The other parent also passes on ONE of his or her alleles. Which allele gets passed on is completely random.
It's like tossing pennies. Every time there is a 50% chance the penny will land heads up and a 50% chance it will land tails up, but this does NOT mean that if you toss the penny 20 times it will come down tails 10 times and heads 10 times. You might get 15 heads and 5 tail, or 7 tails and 13 heads, or any other combination. It's a 50-50 chance every time you toss the penny.
So, when you breed a horse, there is a 50% chance it will pass on the allele of a gene from its sire, and a 50% chance it will pass on the allele from its dam, but there is no guarantee that it will pass on one rather than the other. No matter how many times the sire's allele has been passed on there is still only a 50% chance that he will pass on the dam's allele the next time.

3. So, to show it numerically:

If the sire and the dam are both heterozygous for ice, there is 1 chance in four that the foal will be homozygous for ice; 2 chances in 4 that the foal will be heterozygous for ice; and 1 chance in 4 that the foal will be homozygous non-ice.

If the sire or dam is homozygous for ice and the other parent is heterozygous for ice, there are 2 chances in 4 that the foal will be homozygous for ice and 2 chances in 4 that the foal will be heterozygous for ice.

Just breed to mares you like, or of quality. On average half his foals will have Ice so just cull the ones that don't have it.

On your stallion it says To get "Ice" pattern to appear on offspring, dam must be solid Black, Bay, or Silver. Chestnuts, Smokey, Roan, Cream, WILL NOT PRODUCE ICE PATTERN." That isn't strictly true, Chestnuts and palominos etc certainly can have Ice, it's just that it may be hard to see on the really pale colours such a cremello etc
This is a liver chestnut with Ice
http://hj2.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=464241


And a foal with roan, where ice is a bit harder to see

Thank you, again, to all who have responded. I appreciate your expertise.