Breeding for Conformation (HELP WANTED!)

I'm actually starting to do a statistical analysis of conformation inheritance (from this other thread):

Double post.

Last edited on 2018-09-24 at 04:52:06 by Almárë

on my thread some one did a good study... and its been helping me out a bit.

turns out its mom and dad averaged,  and say who many points between mom and dads skill set determines how many points are going to be off from that.

So if you breed a 67.00 with a 67.00 your going to get a 67.000 but if you breed a 66.something and a 70. something.. you can get a 67.something ( actually happened with one of my fouls)  or you could get something lower then mom or higher then dad but its generally going to be close to ware the " average " lands.

Checking some of my foals other people bred, I found you generally want a 15 to 5 point gap between mom and dads conformity to climb  

though its slow so very slow...

@ Sheila: I realize this was a long time ago, but Maple pretty much said what I would have in this case.  I don't go by a logarithm or formula because it's not as exact as with stats.  There's variation, and there are foals that will be better than, worse than, or equal to the parents in quality.  I go down through the list of traits, find the weakest ones, and breed to another parent who is significantly stronger in those respects, preferably even stronger there than anywhere else.  The big thing is to avoid keeping foals that are lower overall confo than both parents, unless perhaps they are more balanced than both parents.  I actually like a foal that has a full line-up of 60 to 65 confo traits better than one where the traits range randomly from 60 to 95 confo.

Also, I might add that breeding out anything below a certain level of confo is a good place to start.  I do not recommend keeping any animal with an average confo below 50, and you'll be better off if you keep nothing below 55 confo.  Take it one step at a time...my first step in a breed that doesn't have super high confo lines is usually to get everything to a minimum of 60 confo.  Then I raise the bar by 5 at a time.  I'm almost to the point of all 60 or higher confo in my Friesians; my next step is 65 or higher.

My other method is to put confo at the top of my priority list.  Instead of shopping for animals based on stats, I shop based on confo, favoring those with the right specialty and higher stats.  Then I build stats, rather than breed for them, and just make sure I don't breed horses below a certain age unless absolutely necessary to preserve a line that's about to age out.  This takes patience, of course, but after a few generations, it really pays off, as I ultimately get high confo horses with good stats...and that makes for a beautiful herd!

Here's an example of the variations you can get from one breeding pair:

DC Tornado At Sunrise

DC Brilliant Sunrise

Filly

Colt

You will note that Tornado at Sunrise is better than both parents, and mostly because he improved on both in one trait.  This sometimes takes fewer breedings than I had to do in this case, but usually it takes no more than this if the parents are really a good combination.  I wouldn't keep wasting breedings if you don't see the improvement in more than five...you need to move on eventually, and if you are breeding your horses at a minimum age of, say, 12, so you can build stats, that places some limitations on how many breeding you can do with a mare, especially.  (Why I breed mares earlier than stallions in so many cases.)

Just wondering, can a foundation horse have a high confirmation?

Also, is it possible for a horse to have a confirmation of 100?

Yes, foundation horses can have high conformation. The Equine Center no longer gives out foundations with a conformation of above 70, but there are some foundations with higher conformation. Those are from a previous version of Equiverse usually. 

Theoretically yes, it should be possible to breed a 100 horse. That is the goal of many conformation breeders, at least!

From experience, foundations can range anywhere from 48-65% in conformation. Anything above 65% as a foundation that isn't a custom horse is usually a horse from the old conformation system. 

Through careful breeding and good luck a horse can have 100% conformation in theory, I don't think it's been done yet though some have been very close. The highest right now is 99.75%.

Last edited on 2020-08-09 at 15:29:19 by maplɛ