Graying out, i figure this will be interesting to show.

Semi-related, possibly dumb, question.

Is it possible for a horse to develop more "flea bites" as they age? My boy had a handful of flea bites when I first got him, but I swear with each shed he is getting more and more.

Yes, this seems to be the pattern. More as they age.

Glad I am not completely insane then. Thanks Chiilaa.

That's good to know. I had always heard that they get whiter with age. So I assumed that meant the flea bits went away too, but then someone else told me they got more flea bits as they age, and I was kind of like "huh?" Because I had never heard that before. So it's neat to hear someone else say that.

I've had two adult grays, and now my (almost) yearling is going gray too. I think he will be a slow color changer, based on his Mom, and that he seems to be changing rather slowly thus far.

His momma is 17 and still has a few dapples here and there.

The two adult grays I've had (his mom and an Arabian) I haven't been able to tell if they were getting more flea bits or not. The Arabian didn't have a ton of them, and I've only had momma mare for about 1 1/2 years.

So here is my 17 yr old Fox Trotter and her graying baby. You really can't even tell the baby is graying except for the close-ups. No one ever believes he's a gray in photos. I guess I wouldn't either, except in person he has all these funny white hairs.

I've owned a grand total of 1 gray horse in my life. My Dad used to have one named Frosty, but she was in her late 20s when I was born and died just a few years after. She was completely white by that time though.

My guy Dobe was born buckskin, but by the time we got him as a 3 year old, he had turned to a dark gray.

This is the earliest picture we have of him. Sorry it's such poor quality, it was scanned off of a polaroid that was taken in the spring of '05 when he was 3.


Then as a 4 year old.


Then as a 5 year old.


6 years old.


7 years old


8 years old.


And this year at 9.


He seems to be turning white fairly quickly now. I don't know if it is just the fact that he is getting whiter and that makes them easier to see or whether he really is getting more fleabites. Since they are yellow, they are hard to see unless he's really clean and white anyway.

Great photos smrobs! They really show the colour change!

The original gray horse study noted the correlation between degree of fleabitten-ness and heterozygousity.

Eep! Smrobs, 3 year old Dobe looks like just a little guy. Haha.

Po, he was . I swear he was one of the ugliest, scrawniest, little blown out things I had ever seen. I never imagined that he would bulk up and get pretty like he did.

I have a gray mare and she produced her first gray. She has produced 3 other foals but QT is the only foal that will gray out. Here are her pics.

QT (Pocos Impressive QT)

The day she was born.



1 month old.



4 months old



6 months old



8 months old



1 year old



15 months old now