For now, we have a study of a gray/dun family of Kiger Mustangs
on this page. Many dun foals are born light to begin with; when these
foals age, they turn gray at the same time, making them stay very light.
At first they keep their dun markings, because of the way in which all
horses tend to gray (mane, tail & legs go white last.) But at the end
the markings do succumb to the hair pigment loss caused by the gray gene.
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Mestaña's line
This line of Kiger Mustangs has turned out to have gray in it, making them,
of course, very light-colored.
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Text below written, and pictures provided, by Bettye Roberts, except where noted.
"Mestaña is the mare who produced this line. Big Indian is her son by a
dun stallion named Little Indian. Silverado is her son by dun stallion Steens
Kiger. Flash and Casper are the offspring of Silverado. Mestana never
turned grey and died at age 13. Indian never turned gray. When I asked about
Silverado, who is now 7, the owner said that not only had he not turned grey,
but was developing some darker patches. I wondered if this could have meant that
some 'corn' (you know what I mean) spots were appearing due to roan
being involved."
(Note from webmaster: I saw Silverado in 2001 and he looked exactly like a
grey.. .the darker spots were looked like "flea bites". I took a
photo. It is highly unlikely that Mestana did not turn grey as formerly believed
[i.e. she apparently was a grey Kiger.])
"Casper was born from a dun mare with an almost white body coat,
however his head was dun with roan hairs in it. He is three this year and has
not changed yet. His foal, B.A. (from a dun mare) was born very very light dun,
but is shedding out to be lighter, whitish, underneath. His foal dorsal was
originally reddish brown but when he sheds it will be black like Casper's. Not to
say there is no grey involved, but I even asked my vet and he said
"no", emphatically. Here's the pics I have, and you have seen Flash
recently. As you know, it is very difficult to get photographs to capture color
with refined accuracy. I also included a picture of Silverado's 1999 daughter
produced when bred to a grulla mare."
In this chart, "zebra dun" means a
"regular" dun, which is one or two dun genes on a bay base.
Captions by webmaster (Barbara Kostelnik).
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Mestaña, the "foundation mare" of this silvery line
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Silverado, out of Mestaña, by Steens Kiger, a zebra dun.
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Big Indian, out of Mestaña, by Little Indian, a zebra dun
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to be identified...would the person who wrote me about this foal
please write me again? A lot of my old emails were lost when I
changed hard drives. bak@one.net
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Casper, by Silverado, out of a non-gray zebra dun mare (shown at
bottom), owned by Bettye Roberts. More photos of him, older, are available, and hopefully will be added here soon.
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grulla Silverado filly out of the mare Quail (this corrected info
provided by Dianne Chaffee - thank you!)
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CC by Silverado
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Flash (Kigers Flash Point) by Silverado out of a mare the same color
as Steens Kiger. He's young in the bottom pictures ... he has matured
beautifully, and grayed out quite a bit. His owners are quite proud of the
fact that he is a beautiful, Andalusian-like gray Kiger.
and click HERE to see
pictures of him and his that Joleen took for us ~Jan. 2004!
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