How long does it take for a horse to turn fleabitten gray?

My Andalusian.

born bay

18 months steel gray

5 years lovely dapple gray

9 years platinum white; literally glowed in the dark

12 years starting to become fleabitten, but not extensive all over body

beyond that, I don't yet know!

I have a good friend with a TB that was flea bitten by 9, and now at 17 looks almost chestnut he his so heavily spotted with the little red dots!

It's all individual. I think it might also depend on what the base color was to begin with; perhaps the chestnut base turns flea bitten faster than the bay or black do.

just a guess on that.

This is something I think depends souly on the individual horse itself.

I'm no expert on colour genetics so there's probably someone else out there that can answer this better than me.

This is my experience with my gray Arab.

He was born chestnut and then when he lost his 'foal fuzz' he started turning gray. Now his bum is a really nice dapple that I've noticed has been darkening since he's shedding his pissy little winter coat (I live in Australia and it's just gone Spring here). He basically didn't grow a winter coat except for on his bum. As his winter coat has been shedding, his bum has gotten darker in his dapples. His head however, is flea bitten. The rest of him is very very faintly dappled and is turning white.

This has all happened since I got him at 2 years 10 months. He is now 3 years 11 months. When I first got him though he had a dappled bum and the rest of him looked to be whitening out, but he's developed the flea bitten head.

His mum is fully flea bitten and I think she's around 8-10 years and his dad is about 5 or 6 and is fully white. I have no idea what kind of gray my boy is going to be, be it white, flea bitten or dapple. I'm sure that most grays end up being white by the time they're 16 or so.

Again, I'm no colour genetic expert and this is just pretty much guessing and going off what I've seen in my boy over the last 11 months I've had him.

it really depends on the horse and its initial coat colour, if it was born a lighter colour it will naturaly grey out quicker than say a foal born jet black. My filly was born brown and is now 8 and fully flea bitten yet still has a dark mane and tail, but her owner says this is slowly getting lighter with age. I knew a welsh born light chestnut and by 4 was flea bittan and is not 10 and pure whitewith few spots left.

Mine was born a steel grey, then he turned dapple at around 2 years, and then at 5 he was flea bitten grey, still is 11 years later (:

born black

1 year steel

3 years dark gray

5 years gray

8 years light gray

15 years white