Your Thoughts on Linebreeding

I'm just curious where everyone stands on this. 

Selective linebreeding is obviously crucial to real life breeding and in-game it can also significantly increase the speed at which you see improvements in your stock. I know a couple of players here routinely do this and I personally am looking into possibly doing the same. Currently, I don't really sell my stock so it doesn't matter what other people think, but if I do decide to sell future foals, etc. I'm interested to see what other players think of it and whether they'd consider purchasing horses with a grandparent or two showing up more than once. 

I personally also don't have as much importance on lines however I won't buy horses that have the same relative multiple times in their pedigree. They can be 20th gen for all I care but no relative multiple times. I also would personally need to have a rare color to be interested that's just me though

Last edited on 2019-07-31 at 09:57:33 by BonnieLover

I personally don't like line breeding at all, and will avoid it in my own pairing and buying of horses.  I used to scour every single line of the pedigree on horses to avoid picking up any with any horse in there multiple times, though now I've relaxed it slightly. when it's a foundation level horse that is multi-generations off of the other.  Mainly, I would need the line breeding to not be on the first page, and be extremely distant if I'm pairing up my own horses, and it can only be within a single horse connection (so a foundation level horse was bred with two different mares, and those foals are found in different parts of the pedigree).  I only accept it with my longest pedigreed horses, where I'm trying to keep the stat ranges level.

Any horse I have that's less than 6 generations I don't line breed, in short.  I don't buy horses that have line breeding within the last 6 generations.  No multiple horse crossings, etc.  With 99% of my horses, which are well under 6 generations, I don't line breed or won't breed to horses with line breeding.

before i type out a long reply, how are you conceptualizing linebreeding versus inbreeding? i’m familiar with the distinction in real life dog breeding where all linebreeding is inbreeding but not all inbreeding is line breeding. 

It doesn't bother me at all. It would not put me off from buying a good horse that would likely do well in shows. 

Having been in Dog Sports for nearly 40 years, linebreeding to me is not a big deal. 

In fact, having some dogs appear several times in your pedigree is downright desirable. Knowing the Family lines is the key. Knowing how certain animals produce can be very beneficial to a breeding program. 

The goal, after all, is to produce animals better than the parents. To do that, you try to "double up" on as many virtues as you possibly can and where one animal has a fault, you look for a mate that may improve on that fault. Of course, with gene pools, it's all a crap shoot.

With so many in this game not giving a hoot about conformation, I don't see what all the fuss is about. After all, the game does not allow inbreeding!

If someone out there has a horse for sale that fits my criteria (way higher than almost anybody else out there now), I will happily buy it. But who is willing to sell an Andalusian with 98.5+ conformation, non rabicano, no double cream with total stats of 4000+ and nns of less than 60 (for Dressage)?

Since my brain doesn't like to remember genetic stuff or how confo works, the way I challenge myself, besides good stats, is having "clean" lines. Which for me is no duplicates, none that say deceased, etc. However, it also wouldn't bother me if a horse did have the same horse or two in its line, I don't see it as bad or anything. That being said, however, I probably wouldn't buy a horse with mixed bloodlines simply because that would just leave me with stats as a challenge, which wouldn't keep my brain entertained XD But on the flip side, I might one to have for fun/not breed or breed with intention to sell the foal. It all depends on my mood I guess XD I'm so helpful I know :P

@kahzie - There's currently coding in place that does not allow horses to be bred if they're more closely related than the third generation, I believe. So direct inbreeding (sibling to sibling, even half-siblings, or parent to offspring, etc.) isn't possible. I'm talking about two horses that perhaps have a grandparent in common. 

Selective linebreeding doesn't bother me. As Rancho SoCal said, "Knowing how certain animals produce can be very beneficial to a breeding program." It's a great way to maximize the traits you're after.

I might be in the minority here, but I wish there wasn't a block on how we could breed. (and ditto on the confo thing, lots of stances on here just confuse me haha)

I personally don’t line breed my horses, but i have tried to before. I find it too complicated and don’t have the patience for it.
If i buy or rescue a horse that was bred by another player, i pair it with a foundation mate.
Especially, if their nss are high. They may have a lower conformation, but i try to avoid it if possible.
I will pair horses that i bred, with foundation mates as well.

I have my own stock, and some (a lot) of my horses are somewhat related but I breed to other players horses or buy other horses to breed to. And finally after some time my stock is getting better and better, so of course I'm going to sell some for other players to show, raise and start their own breeding. I think it's great.

Personally I don't dislike it or like it, but it does have its reasons as to why it can be a good thing or a bad thing. Linebreeding isn't something that I would do when breeding my horses because I prefer to have horses with clean lines but that's just me.

Inbreeding does not uncover dominate genes because they always show themselves. However, it does increase the degree of homozygosity among the dominant genes. Inbreeding can help to fix characteristics within a breed, but at the same time as fixing the good characteristics it may help to fix bad ones.

Last edited on 2019-08-01 at 17:32:17 by 𝒯all 𝒪ak 𝒮tables

@Cascabel - I agree with you and do wish there wasn't any restriction on breeding, but we're likley in the minority. *shrug* Oh well! 

Fortunately, there isn't much we have to worry about in-game regarding the expression of bad traits or health issues, so other than some peoples' preference for "clean" (I use this word loosely) lines, I will personally probably be doing some linebreeding to reach my goals.