Brown Based Horses

So lately I have been breeding my quarter horses for the dun gene, more specifically, dunalinos and cremello duns. However, while this will still be my main focus, I want to get a few more brown-based horses as a side project.

So far, I have a Seal Brown stallion and his daughter, a seal brown cream. I would like to get a brown dun, moreno and seal brown cream dun, along with the brown based champagne coats.

I am unsure of what crosses I should make to get these colors, so I am here to ask anyone who has bred these colors, what color crosses you did to achieve these colors?

Right now I have a classic dun mare (homozygeous dun, DD) bred to my seal brown stallion, and a classic dun mare (Dd) bred to my seal stallion, that are due to give birth tomorrow. Hoping that will give me the brown duns I am looking for.

My ultimate goal on this game is to have all the colors allowed in the quarter horse breed, along with most of the markings (roan, flaxen, silver, etc) allowed in the quarter horse breed. So please help!

I would recommend going in to the horse search page (find it by going to Town), then search for horses with brown and take a look at horses that have their genetics revealed. That should help you see what to aim for. Once you know the genetic combo to look for, you can figure out which horses you can breed to get that combination.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if you can get a horse that's AtAt, it'll produce 100% brown babies, because brown is dominant and only needs one At to show brown. Your stallion is Ata, so he's going to produce some browns. That AtAt horse will help immensely when it comes to getting your other colors!

I'm not a huge fan of duns (though it's more because I feel like I have so many of them, rather than they aren't nice looking), but ugh, browns have slowly become my favorite. I'm trying to make them a bit more abundant in my own quarter horses, and paints, as well.

This is my only brown dun lovely atm though - Social Smoker. I have some browns interspersed with my herd though, so hopefully I'll see more in the future. c:

At is dominant over a, but A is phenotypically dominant over At. (AA/Aa/AAt will show as bay, AtAt/Ata will show as brown, aa will be black.) But if a horse is AAt, it could still produce brown offspring, even though it itself is not brown.

The order of dominance for Agouti, from most dominant to least dominant is A+ (wild bay), A (bay), At (brown), and a (non-agouti - either black or chestnut.) The only combinations that will show brown are Ata and AtAt.

Agouti will not express itself without Extension. Extension controls whether or not there will be black hair, and Agouti controls where that black hair will be. If a horse is not either EE or Ee, it will not produce black hair, and ee will be chestnut, no matter what you have for agouti. So, to have a brown horse, you need to be EE Ata, EE AtAt, Ee Ata, or Ee AtAt.

Dun is dominant. All a horse needs is one dun gene to be dun. A DD horse will always have dun foals. A Dd horse will have 50% dun foals when bred to a dd horse. Dd and Dd together will produce 75% dun foals.

Champagne (ChCh or Chch) is the same as dun.

Cream is incomplete dominant. A brown based horse with Crcr will be seal brown cream, and one with CrCr will be moreno. CrCr + CrCr will always produce moreno (or perlino, cremello, or smoky cream in other base colors.) CrCr + Crcr will produce half moreno and half seal brown cream. CrCr + crcr will always produce seal brown cream. Crcr + Crcr will produce 50% seal brown cream, 25% moreno, and 25% plain brown. Crcr + crcr will produce half seal brown cream and half plain brown.

Thanks for the genetics lessons, Katy and Confessor! I'll add this info to my notes. n___n

Thank you for the very helpful information! I will be altering my breeding program, and genetic testing my mares!