Equine Color Genetics

By Rebecca Bellone, D. Phillip Sponenberg, D Phillip Sponenberg

Book Overview

Equine Color Genetics 2e is a complete discussion of horse and donkey colors, including details of their genetic control and their identification. The book explains how to accurately identify horses and donkeys by using colors. It furthers an understanding of the genetic basis of color and contributes to research on specific behavioral characteristics associated with color. The author includes all known color variations of horses throughout the world. The book provides an explanation of genetic mechanisms that determine colors and discusses colors in sequence from less common to more common. Donkey color is addressed in a separate section. This uncomplicated and useful approach to understanding horse and donkey color patterns, as well as the various subtleties that exist, includes more than 100 striking color photographs accompanied by descriptions of both common and unique coat patterns. With new chapters concerning breeds and conservation and on the basic biology of gene selection, as well as new appendices detailing previously undocumented genes in horses and donkeys, this second edition of Equine Color Genetics will appeal to anyone who is a student of the horse. Breeders, veterinarians, faculty and veterinary students and equine science students will find this book a valuable addition to their libraries.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081380759X
• ISBN13: 9780813807591
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Length: 215 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.3" x 0.7" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

Highly reccomended for all equine enthusiasts

Easy to understand, authoritiative, from one of the best experts in the field of genetics. Comprehendable, thorough discussions and plenty of beautiful pictures. Highly reccomended for anyone interested in learning the basics of equine color genetics.

Sponenberg Makes Easy a Complex Topic

The topic of horse coloration has confounded breeders for centuries. Phil Sponenberg has taken a very complex topic and has broken it down into easily understood parts. The pictures grab you by the eyes and inspire equine artists as well as breeders. The various modes of inheritance were well explained and easily understood. The photos allow the reader to distinguish even fine points of difference between two animals. This book is a must for the serious horse person.

THE best book on color genetics for horses

If there was any one good book focusing on the genetics of horse color, this book is it! It's the best and most accurate book I have found on the subject, and it covers all equine colors from the basics to the more rare colors. A must have for anyone intersted in horse color research! It even includes donkey colors. HIGHLY RECCOMMENED!

Stands out in morass of mis- and dysinformation and "lore"

D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, PhD, is one of a mere handful of real authorities on the inheritance of horse coat color -- a topic fraught with inherent complexities and burdened down with massive amounts of "lore" that amounts all too often to nothing more than misinformation or dysinformation. Well illustrated with color plates. Covers latest trait linkage tests (as for lethal white foal) and results of the author's extensive and in some cases unprecedented studies of horse color genetics. Not a "popular" treatment (it's from Iowa State University Press, Ames, a place of high seriousness when it comes to livestock and creatures of any sort likely to be found around farms), it is, nonetheless, accessible and generally clear. A somewhat more recent book by Sponenberg and Beaver is shorter and perhaps less "academic" than Horse Color, which is a valuable book with few, if any (in its class), competitors.

Invaluable resource for breeders who are interested in color

As a breeder of Quarter Horses and Paints, I've found this book to be an excellent tool to help make breeding decisions. It has also proven to be an extrememly accurate predictor of the color of foals from a particular mating.