Alpacas Magazine - 2010 Spring

The range of expressivity means that some

animals that are genetically gray, may not end up

characterized as gray, or meet the AOBA show

definitions of gray. Very light animals that are

grayed can be harder to detect as well. The fawn-

looking cria in the upper right corner of the

Variable Expressivity figure above is likely a poorly-

expressed light rose gray, just as his mother (in the

middle) is a poorly-expressed, very dark silver gray.

She showed in black and even took second place at

the AOBA nationals as a black juvenile many years

ago, but had grayed down the neck and into the

blanket by one year of age and is now much more

obviously a gray rather than a black as AOBA

color-checked her.

Bred to solid four times, Pistol, the dam in the

middle of the figure, made two obvious grays with

white markings, one fawn and one that is likely a

poorly-expressed light rose gray. The upper right

male had a light forelock and dark back of the head

and dark fibers throughout the fleece. He showed in

light fawn a number of times and indefinite a few

times. We will see what he produces in a year or

two. I predict 50% grays bred to solid non-whites.

Dark-Headed Roan Grays

I believe this is caused by a different gene than the

classic grays. It seems to behave as a recessive, as

most dark-headed roans have NO ROAN PAR-

ENTS. This is the classic sign of a recessive trait.

For dominant traits, if you have the allele, you

have the trait. Clearly, this is not the case for

dark-headed roans. Breeding two dark-headed

roans together should always yield more dark-

headed roans (if it is a simple recessive trait).

So far, I have seen no outcomes from such a

breeding, but a number have been undertaken,

so 2010 should yield some data. This also means

that Dark-Headed Roans rarely reproduce their

phenotype, and the registry backs this up, with

very few gray crias out of dark-headed roans,

unless they were bred to classic grays. Any animal

can make gray bred to classic gray. However, if

you can identify carriers of the roan allele and

breed them to roan grays, they should make roan

grays 50% of the time. Carriers would be any

non-gray animal that made a dark-headed roan

gray cria and any cria of dark-headed roans.

Possible carriers would be siblings of dark-headed

roans. Dark-headed roans have no white on them

typically, and are thus not a risk for making

BEWs. They also lack the dark spotting typical

of both classic grays and harlequin grays.

Spring 2010

Silver Grays and Rose Grays are both part of the Classic or Tuxedo phenotype.