Breeding strategically?

What is your strategy for breeding your horses? Do you breed your mares to several different stallions, to find a combination you like, or stick with one stallion for a single breeding and take the foal you get?

Me? I prefer to sniff out pedigrees that are either newer, such as 2nd generation, foundation, or even pedigrees that I have not seen before, and only breed 1-2 times; though I've been staying private since August 2016. You have no idea how many foundations I've got locked away in my divisions that I haven't quite had a chance to work with, or don't have enough time, or will have over 10 pairs to be bred at the same time; which has happened to me once. *coughs..... Arabians..... coughs*

I feel like being strategic, in YOUR own special way, is the way to go in order to succeed with EV. 

Just wondering..........

-Feather

Last edited on 2017-07-12 at 21:48:12 by 💖 Feathered Gold 💖

I prefer to do pairing at the moment and depending on the color combos breeding 1-3 times. Starting at 18, 19, and 20 respectively depending on how many foals I want to try.

Since I am only offering a few breedings to each horse publicly, I'll probably either keep the foals and use them for riding schools or sell them to the right buyer. 

Maybe on my next project I'll try a stallion with different mares, but I feel that gets confusing to me later on when I am trying to pair, but there is more than one foal that I want to keep from that stud. But, we shall see.

Right now I'm going to have a lot of foals born in the next 3 weeks. I think I will have over 15... I'll have to double check and make sure, between two of my breeds right now and that feels like a handful. Hence the hesitation with the stallion route. Maybe I will if I end up getting more mares than stallions later on, but as of right now this is where I am at.

I'm pairing based on conformation and breeding the pairs three times since conformation has so much variation.

for my personal arabian lines pair i pair up one mare to one stallion, and breed twice, keeping the foal with the best conformation/color. i will do the same for my tiny trake line and for my stat gypsy line.

for my mustangs i pair them up much the same, but will occasionally 'outcross' to breed foals that i plan on selling

for my quarter horse confo project and my gypsy color project, i pair them up 1-to-1 and breed them back to back from 3+ until i get the foal i want.

Interesting.......

I just wanted to see how different players played EV. :) 

Why did I go private in the first place? I used to be so easy to convince to let someone breed their mare or stallion to one of my babies. It's because I noticed that when I bred extra foals to sell, they didn't sell either to those who requested them, or I had to keep them to offer up for stud/brood until they died, which frustrated me so much. I also wanted to get away from the common lines that are in the various breeds I work with and wanted my herds to have pedigrees that aren't found anywhere else on the game. These are the reasons why I forced myself to go private quietly in August of 2016. No announcement or anything and soon after that; wow!!!! You wouldn't believe how many people started to message me about getting a breeding from a certain pair/s after that. LOL 

I shall still remain private in my breeding for all my breeds for at least another 6 months; except for the Miniatures. They're not going to be offered up to the public until the 3rd generation, so don't bother asking!

-Feather

<sup>I breed at 19 and 20 years respectively with my own paired horses. If I have a group or similar aged/statted horses, I'll cross the pairs for the 19 yr breeding (a x b, b x c, etc) just to mix up pedigrees, I know I'm not inbreeding since I sell the 19 yr foals and don't keep siblings. When it comes to pairing, I tend to pair by non-speciality stats and pedigree if I'm working with a mixed pedigree group. If it's my own lines/pedigree and the stats are similar, I pair by colour and conformation since I know they're not related. 

I don't know if I really consider myself a private or public breeder, sort of inbetween. I keep my personal lines to myself and don't outcross to other horses for foals, but I offer up my stallions for stud for a limited time/limited amount of foals. I don't really get many breed requests (private - priced at 5k per 100 stats) but when I do I'm careful about the mare and breeder. I think it's a process that works quite well, I don't see too many of my own horses floating around in pedigrees and it gives players a chance at getting some less common blood when I sell my 19 yr foals. Though lately that practice has had to change a little bit since I was running out of room and the horse market has gone downhill. Rather than breeding at 19 and hoping I'll sell the foals (since it's usually in groups), I've been offering the 19 yr breedings and only breeding it if someone claims the foals, especially for the less common/desired breeds. While this means there's less of my horses going round, I just hope to improve limited gene pools and fill whatever demand there is for the breed. More than happy to work with any breed and breeder as long as they're responsible heh.</sup> 

Well since I've started a new line of horses I'm working out the kinks as I go with ... other than that I usually like to breed horses at 18, 19, or 20. Personally, I usually make a pair (a mare and stallion) that will breed twice. I'd say I'm usually a private breeder, but for some horses I will go look for a good stud to breed to OR I'll buy a mare that I like and breed it. 

To be honest, I feel like some breeders here on EV use the same methods, but some don't. I feel that if you can create a system that works for what you want in your horses go for it. You might find something that works that no one has done before, you never know.

Something that I find that helps when I'm breeding for stats is that I pair up my foundations horses right when I get them. I like to "spread the wealth" (meaning I don't pair up horses that are the two highest stated horses that I have) with the stats. I found that this works pretty well and it keeps the horses moving up together. Does that make any sense? I feel like it doesn't lol.

Also, here's a topic that I posted about a year ago that got some good responses and that has some good information. Click here!

Last edited on 2017-07-13 at 11:06:20 by Annabeth

I agree. 

With my horses, I tend to pair them up based upon age, conformation, and sometimes stats. Mostly, even if the "pairs" are 1-3 weeks apart in age, I can work with that. Conformation? Highest conformation horse with lowest conformation horse and go from there. Unless I want to keep the conformation super high, such as lined horses and breeding a 85 conformation horse with a 95+ conformation horse, that's the road I tend to follow with my foundations to end up with 58+ conformation 2nd generation foals on. 

I prefer not to breed one mare to multiple stallions or multiple mares to one stallion. I have done that in the past and had to keep two lines separate because I liked both of the foals. I will do 1-2 breedings per pair, unless I am hoping for a specific match.

I assign my mares to three different stallions of my own, same for the stallions. The mares can breed with two more stallions which I do not own, but I keep my three favorite foals of the mare's. I let my stallions go public, but they can only have two outside foals. 

I pair them up trying to improve their best qualities (or worst!) and if that's possible, try and add something else in such as a color.