This message is from: Mary Thurman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--- sini seppala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This message is from: sini seppala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Hello everybody. Came across some statistics that > you might find > interesting. > Isn't it fascinating that the majority of Fjords > actually used to be > white duns during the second half of the 19th > century! It would be nice > to know why the Norwegian breeders quite suddenly > started to favour > brown duns, If you read the article "The White Fjords of Hjerkin" - reprinted a while back in the Fjord Herald - it tells a pretty good story of why the white duns fell out of favor. Basically, not much was known about genetics and recessive genes back then. SO, when a white dun was bred to a white dun they began getting what we call 'cremello' Fjords - white horses with pink skin, blue eyes, no dorsal or black in mane and tail. Not acceptable. Since they did not understand WHAT had happened - or WHY it happened - they just stopped breeding white duns, thinking there was a problem with them. Now that we understand recessive genes, etc., the white duns are gradually coming back in Norway. Mary And why > were red duns always > so rare The genetics of a red dun(or of the even more rare yellow dun) are rather complicated, to say the least. You might call their occurance almost an 'accident of nature'. Perhaps Anneli can help us out here on this one? Mary - ===== Mary Thurman Raintree Farms [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/
