Grey Color Beagle
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Steve Mikkelson
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- Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:56 pm
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Last edited by Steve Mikkelson on Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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NLPC & IFC Riley's Rolling Trails
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
I first of all really like this thread along with a few others on here. I think this is what this whole forum is about, asking questions and finding answers. Not so much the “soap box” as many others on the web. I contacted a couple of friends of mine. One is a Vet and the other teaches “genetics” at a College and they both sent me some good stuff on this. After seeing these pictures and hearing all kinds of opinions, out of curiosity and because of some experiences of my own that I have had over the years, I had some questions of my own.
In the early 90’s I had gotten a “linebred/inbred” Pearson Creek female from a friend. She could run a rabbit and had a lot of hunt but was real slow. I made the decision to breed her, but if you looked at her 8 generation pedigree and took out all of the dogs that were in there more than 3 times, you would only have a few dogs left. So I thought I would breed her to a total outcross. I had the thought that I needed to not only take her to a total outcross, but a fast {hare bred} male that was also “extremely” linebred but with and from a total different line, to off set her gene dominance with him being so tight bred himself from total different genes..
It could not have backfired any worse. The pups that she had could have traveled the world in a circus. She had 5 pups and 2 were “normal”. The other 3 were freakish. One was born with no ears. It had the “holes” in the side of the head “ear canals” but it did not have the “floppy ears” on its head that hang down, just two holes. Another pup came out with “zero” hair. It looked like a baby rat. Another pup came out with its head double the size it should be and its body half the size it should be. All 3 of these “messed up” pups had 6 toes on every foot. As I said before, one of these pups was bald. Another pup was solid black, and the third pup was solid white. {Both parents were tri-color}
The one with the “big head” and the bald pup died within 24 hours. The pup with no ears I put down myself. The other 2 pups were normal but I did not register them and I gave them away. I tore up her papers and gave away the mother and I have not had anything to do with the lines from either parent since. None of my dogs now are related to any of those.
But this is what I have learned. The alleles “cells” that join together to make the gene that determines the hair color has little to do with the ones that determine the skin pigment. They are different cells coming together to form genes that create total separate things. But, individuals do believe that the “root source” of that what caused those alleles “cells” to combine to make “grey hair” could and might also cause other alleles “cells” to combine to create bad pigment which would cause many skin problems. Simply because they stem from the same root problem that caused both, lack of variety or too much of the same gene selection or “incompatible” alleles “cells”.
An individual's genotype for a gene is the set of alleles “cells” it happens to possess, cells that come from both the father and mother. In diploid organisms (two copies of each chromosome) including humans, two alleles make up the individual's genotype. Lets say Capital B= black {dominate} and Lower case b=white {recessive}. 8 alleles “cells” {4 from each parent} will contribute. The alleles “cells” will merge together to decide the color. Blue or charcoal grey, as a dilution of black, is caused by the melanophilin gene (MLPH). A Dilution of Eumelanin and/or Phaeomelanin.
{Note: that is why many breeders say that after the grandparents, what is in a pedigree does not matter and has no real effect on your dog today. But, the genes that made up the grandparents were the genes of “their” grandparents… and so on. That is why it is important to keep every pup in every litter and keep the ones that took the “genes” that creates the right hunting traits and characteristics {along with color} from the descendants that you wanted them to portray. Keeping a pup from birth because of its pedigree and using it for brood is just playing the lottery within your gene poole. How many of us have let the “best pup” go at 8 weeks old because we picked ours out early and sold the rest. But, that is the advantage of “line breeding”. I did not say inbreeding, but line breeding. There is a huge difference between line breeding and inbreeding. I am personally a big believer in line breeding, but you can go to far.}
Sire: Bb = Dominant Black & BB = Dominant Black
Dam: Bb = Dominate Black & bb = Recessive White
For dominant/recessive genes, like that which determines whether a dog has black hair (B) or white hair (b), the dominant allele “cell” will mask {over take} the recessive one. In the example above 75% of the offspring will be black (BB or Bb) while only 25% will be white (bb).
This is your situation, 8 alleles “cells” contribute. You may have a case where Dominate Black {BB} is the exact same as the Recessive White {bb} and they are exactly same. This is rare because when Black {B} is alone, it is Black. And when Black is added to Recessive White {b} it is still Black because Black {B} overtakes recessive White{b}. Recessive White only remains White when it is doubled up on recessive White {bb}.
When you look at the %’s or the chances of the White recessive gene {b} being present in the same amount as the Black {B} or/and the {Bb} Black with the White recessive together {which is still black}, it is very uncommon. My example is just between the 2 colors of Black and White. Now factor in all the other colors and alleles “cells” that represent all of those, and you still get a dead even number of Dominate Black and recessive White, which makes Grey. Real uncommon.
Now I am not really doing this justice because I am leaving out all kinds of different factors to save time and space, but I will say this, the Grey hair does not mean you will automatically have skin problems. And if a person wanted to raise “Grey” beagles, they could do the right way and have no problems. One way to do it would be to find other “unrelated” dogs that were like this and breed them and the gene pool would carry that gene but also open it up not to have problems in other areas. If you selectively only keep the “Grey” beagles for a few generations, after a while you have a line. It is really not much different than those that use the same method to keep a “strain” with particular hunting traits, except you have to keep all the pups, train them and watch them run before you can distinguish which pups took which traits and than cull the ones that fall short, instead of being able to physically see the colors.
Breeders from different breeds have been doing it for a while with no problems at all. Dobermans, Chows, Bird Dogs etc… with the most well known of these dogs being the Weimaraner. The Weimaraner started as a cross between the mixtures of the Great Dane, Pointer and Blood Hound. After a few crosses this Grey/Blue color came up in pups and they just began to breed just those together and now it is a well known line. They have done this since the early 1800’s with no problems. Below are some pictures of those. In the pictures on the left is a Doberman, a litter of Grate Danes and a litter of Labs. On the right is a Weimaraner and a Chow. They are not considered a “mistake”, freak of nature or a mutant. AKC recognizes them in any breed and many are winning in the field and show.
Just some personal thoughts and experiences, Jim
If you really wanted to study deep into it:
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co ... l/esm021v1
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dilutions.html
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=2253553
In the early 90’s I had gotten a “linebred/inbred” Pearson Creek female from a friend. She could run a rabbit and had a lot of hunt but was real slow. I made the decision to breed her, but if you looked at her 8 generation pedigree and took out all of the dogs that were in there more than 3 times, you would only have a few dogs left. So I thought I would breed her to a total outcross. I had the thought that I needed to not only take her to a total outcross, but a fast {hare bred} male that was also “extremely” linebred but with and from a total different line, to off set her gene dominance with him being so tight bred himself from total different genes..
It could not have backfired any worse. The pups that she had could have traveled the world in a circus. She had 5 pups and 2 were “normal”. The other 3 were freakish. One was born with no ears. It had the “holes” in the side of the head “ear canals” but it did not have the “floppy ears” on its head that hang down, just two holes. Another pup came out with “zero” hair. It looked like a baby rat. Another pup came out with its head double the size it should be and its body half the size it should be. All 3 of these “messed up” pups had 6 toes on every foot. As I said before, one of these pups was bald. Another pup was solid black, and the third pup was solid white. {Both parents were tri-color}
The one with the “big head” and the bald pup died within 24 hours. The pup with no ears I put down myself. The other 2 pups were normal but I did not register them and I gave them away. I tore up her papers and gave away the mother and I have not had anything to do with the lines from either parent since. None of my dogs now are related to any of those.
But this is what I have learned. The alleles “cells” that join together to make the gene that determines the hair color has little to do with the ones that determine the skin pigment. They are different cells coming together to form genes that create total separate things. But, individuals do believe that the “root source” of that what caused those alleles “cells” to combine to make “grey hair” could and might also cause other alleles “cells” to combine to create bad pigment which would cause many skin problems. Simply because they stem from the same root problem that caused both, lack of variety or too much of the same gene selection or “incompatible” alleles “cells”.
An individual's genotype for a gene is the set of alleles “cells” it happens to possess, cells that come from both the father and mother. In diploid organisms (two copies of each chromosome) including humans, two alleles make up the individual's genotype. Lets say Capital B= black {dominate} and Lower case b=white {recessive}. 8 alleles “cells” {4 from each parent} will contribute. The alleles “cells” will merge together to decide the color. Blue or charcoal grey, as a dilution of black, is caused by the melanophilin gene (MLPH). A Dilution of Eumelanin and/or Phaeomelanin.
{Note: that is why many breeders say that after the grandparents, what is in a pedigree does not matter and has no real effect on your dog today. But, the genes that made up the grandparents were the genes of “their” grandparents… and so on. That is why it is important to keep every pup in every litter and keep the ones that took the “genes” that creates the right hunting traits and characteristics {along with color} from the descendants that you wanted them to portray. Keeping a pup from birth because of its pedigree and using it for brood is just playing the lottery within your gene poole. How many of us have let the “best pup” go at 8 weeks old because we picked ours out early and sold the rest. But, that is the advantage of “line breeding”. I did not say inbreeding, but line breeding. There is a huge difference between line breeding and inbreeding. I am personally a big believer in line breeding, but you can go to far.}
Sire: Bb = Dominant Black & BB = Dominant Black
Dam: Bb = Dominate Black & bb = Recessive White
For dominant/recessive genes, like that which determines whether a dog has black hair (B) or white hair (b), the dominant allele “cell” will mask {over take} the recessive one. In the example above 75% of the offspring will be black (BB or Bb) while only 25% will be white (bb).
This is your situation, 8 alleles “cells” contribute. You may have a case where Dominate Black {BB} is the exact same as the Recessive White {bb} and they are exactly same. This is rare because when Black {B} is alone, it is Black. And when Black is added to Recessive White {b} it is still Black because Black {B} overtakes recessive White{b}. Recessive White only remains White when it is doubled up on recessive White {bb}.
When you look at the %’s or the chances of the White recessive gene {b} being present in the same amount as the Black {B} or/and the {Bb} Black with the White recessive together {which is still black}, it is very uncommon. My example is just between the 2 colors of Black and White. Now factor in all the other colors and alleles “cells” that represent all of those, and you still get a dead even number of Dominate Black and recessive White, which makes Grey. Real uncommon.
Now I am not really doing this justice because I am leaving out all kinds of different factors to save time and space, but I will say this, the Grey hair does not mean you will automatically have skin problems. And if a person wanted to raise “Grey” beagles, they could do the right way and have no problems. One way to do it would be to find other “unrelated” dogs that were like this and breed them and the gene pool would carry that gene but also open it up not to have problems in other areas. If you selectively only keep the “Grey” beagles for a few generations, after a while you have a line. It is really not much different than those that use the same method to keep a “strain” with particular hunting traits, except you have to keep all the pups, train them and watch them run before you can distinguish which pups took which traits and than cull the ones that fall short, instead of being able to physically see the colors.
Breeders from different breeds have been doing it for a while with no problems at all. Dobermans, Chows, Bird Dogs etc… with the most well known of these dogs being the Weimaraner. The Weimaraner started as a cross between the mixtures of the Great Dane, Pointer and Blood Hound. After a few crosses this Grey/Blue color came up in pups and they just began to breed just those together and now it is a well known line. They have done this since the early 1800’s with no problems. Below are some pictures of those. In the pictures on the left is a Doberman, a litter of Grate Danes and a litter of Labs. On the right is a Weimaraner and a Chow. They are not considered a “mistake”, freak of nature or a mutant. AKC recognizes them in any breed and many are winning in the field and show.
Just some personal thoughts and experiences, Jim
If you really wanted to study deep into it:
http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co ... l/esm021v1
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/dilutions.html
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=2253553
"Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in." - Mark Twain
Re: Grey Color Beagle
[quote][/quote]quote="Laneline"]I first of all really like this thread along with a few others on here. I think this is what this whole forum is about, asking questions and finding answers. Not so much the “soap box” as many others on the web.
I agree I look for questions and answers on this forum and yes I don't mine asking the questions. That is a good read on the alleles cells and genes make up. I'm going to keep the pup and see how he turn's out.
I agree I look for questions and answers on this forum and yes I don't mine asking the questions. That is a good read on the alleles cells and genes make up. I'm going to keep the pup and see how he turn's out.
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deerstalker
- Posts: 69
- Joined: Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:01 pm
- Location: Taylorsville, Ky
Re: Grey Color Beagle
Jim,
Thank you so very much for taking the time to explain( let alone type) that lesson in genetics, and I believe everything you said. My daughter breeds mini-rex rabbits for show, and we have the same issues with color, but what's different is that no one says that" that rabbit is junk" because it is a certain color, unless of course it comes out a color not recogized by the ARBA. All the rabbits are pedigreed and we show them, just like dogs, for conformation. The difference with our hounds is we are going for conformation as well as ability/ agility, so it is twice as hard to get good animals because we are looking at all the animals traits, not just how good they look. I also used to raise chow chows, and we had the same issues about breeding for certain colors, but we were not looking at ability as they were only pets. I think you have successfully shown scientifically that it doesn't make any dog any better than another because of color, it's only a personal preference, and a fella should run what makes him happy. That being said, if anyone has any of those "junk" gray dogs of good bloodlines that they want to cast aside as junk( particuarly if they are already good running dogs) I'd like to look at them before you put them down, cause I like them a lot.
Thanks again,
Bryan
Thank you so very much for taking the time to explain( let alone type) that lesson in genetics, and I believe everything you said. My daughter breeds mini-rex rabbits for show, and we have the same issues with color, but what's different is that no one says that" that rabbit is junk" because it is a certain color, unless of course it comes out a color not recogized by the ARBA. All the rabbits are pedigreed and we show them, just like dogs, for conformation. The difference with our hounds is we are going for conformation as well as ability/ agility, so it is twice as hard to get good animals because we are looking at all the animals traits, not just how good they look. I also used to raise chow chows, and we had the same issues about breeding for certain colors, but we were not looking at ability as they were only pets. I think you have successfully shown scientifically that it doesn't make any dog any better than another because of color, it's only a personal preference, and a fella should run what makes him happy. That being said, if anyone has any of those "junk" gray dogs of good bloodlines that they want to cast aside as junk( particuarly if they are already good running dogs) I'd like to look at them before you put them down, cause I like them a lot.
Thanks again,
Bryan
If I was doin any better today, I couldn't stand it!
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Steve Mikkelson
- Posts: 567
- Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:56 pm
- Location: Allendale, Michigan
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Last edited by Steve Mikkelson on Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Cut'em loose
NLPC & IFC Riley's Rolling Trails
NLPC & IFC Riley's Rolling Trails
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Steve Mikkelson
- Posts: 567
- Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2004 2:56 pm
- Location: Allendale, Michigan
.
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Last edited by Steve Mikkelson on Mon Dec 31, 2012 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cut'em loose
NLPC & IFC Riley's Rolling Trails
NLPC & IFC Riley's Rolling Trails
Re: Grey Color Beagle
Its just a coincidence.
Look somewhere else.....
Look somewhere else.....
Rob’s Ranger Rabbit Hunter (Lefty)
Rose City Quad King’s
DogPatch Fly
Rose City Quad King’s
DogPatch Fly
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beagle crazy
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
Thanks fellas for your input. I've learned a lot and I appreciate your willingness to share ALL THAT stuff with the rest of us.
Now, my grey beagle DOES NOT have Jack anywhere in her pedigree. And I don't think there are any blueticks in there either. ???
Now, my grey beagle DOES NOT have Jack anywhere in her pedigree. And I don't think there are any blueticks in there either. ???
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AlabamaSwamper
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
I guess I was lucky then. Never been to a vet other than for his shots.Steve Mikkelson wrote:I'm most certain every vet will tell you DON'T breed a grey beagle. You may be lucky and not have problems but you are passing on the problem if you bred them. Why be tempted? You won't be tempted if you cull these grey beagles or at least get them fixed and hope you don't end up with a pile of vet bills $$$$$$$$$$$$.
Best rabbit dog I've ever owned. Probably has more heart and desire than 99% of the dogs I've seen run.
He has seizures from time to time and is old now. Course, a tricolor I own does also.
I've never bred my grey beagle on purpose. He did sire an accidental litter last year. All 4 are healthy and none were grey.
"No stronger bond exist than that between a man and his dog."
Link to RabbitDawg board. (Old Southernbeagles board)
http://www.excoboard.com/exco/index.php?boardid=6643
Link to RabbitDawg board. (Old Southernbeagles board)
http://www.excoboard.com/exco/index.php?boardid=6643
Re: Grey Color Beagle
Steve you might be on to something. Just had a litter of 6 today. The female is out of my direct son of Lumberjack and direct daughter of Heliprop and to top that off the female is a bluetick. She has 2 grey colored pups.
Paul
Paul
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ironjawdawgs
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
You going to knock them in the head?_luckyone wrote:Steve you might be on to something. Just had a litter of 6 today. The female is out of my direct son of Lumberjack and direct daughter of Heliprop and to top that off the female is a bluetick. She has 2 grey colored pups.
Paul
EP's Northway Iron Jaw Kennels
http://www.freewebs.com/epsnorthwayiron ... /index.htm
Future:
http://www.espomagazine.com/pedigrees/11459.htm
http://www.espomagazine.com/pedigrees/11461.htm
http://www.freewebs.com/epsnorthwayiron ... /index.htm
Future:
http://www.espomagazine.com/pedigrees/11459.htm
http://www.espomagazine.com/pedigrees/11461.htm
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Pike Ridge Beagles
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
mybeagles wrote:Its just a coincidence.
Look somewhere else.....
Have looked at 32 pups out of Jack breeding up close in the last two years and have yet to see a grey one.
I kind of like those grey little bastards though.
My thoughts....nothing to do with color...everything to do the helix coil around skin pigment.
I know of a dominant line that fits that bill. But is it hard hard hunt...or DNA? Or a combination?
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Danny King
- Posts: 465
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
i had a buddy whos wife raised some bluecap hounds that were grey she sold them for lots of money put them on some site they went like hotcakes im tlaking close to 800 for a dang beagle pup thats plus shipping so thats about another 200 more
Lets Run Em... Hammerdown...Yankee By Birth Rebel By Choice!
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Chippewa01
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Re: Grey Color Beagle
I got a pup now that is grey and white with some tan. Had two int he litter both females but one died at about 2 days old. The one that made it is doing well. She has a deep grey coat and is getting more tan everyday...she looking like a tri-color. IDK if i am going to keep her yet its between her and another female...
http://www.chippewa-valley-kennels.webs.com
Home of
Ch HbCh Buckeye Bear of Brush
PcH GrHbCh Chippewa Bear Cub
GrHbCh Chippewa Little Rachel
Home of
Ch HbCh Buckeye Bear of Brush
PcH GrHbCh Chippewa Bear Cub
GrHbCh Chippewa Little Rachel
Re: Grey Color Beagle
Skin problems! Doc S who used to write for the Amer. Beagler (or Rabbit Hunter) wrote a good article on it a few years ago. The article stopped me from buying a grey pup & I lucked out because she ended up having skin & health problems. You may want to keep this one yourself, just to make sure. Let us know how this pup turns out.