Confo help

we're talkin' the Clydesdales here

I'm starting 2 confo lines, one of Clydesdales and one of QHs, right now I'm working on the Clyde lines. Since I don't have much experience with confo breeding I'm wondering what you all do for confo breeding?

Do you breed poors to goods?
Similar confos to each other, i.e. 50 legs to 51 legs?

Of the Clyde mares I have now which would you be inclined to keep? [k] means keep, [?] means unsure, cull means well cull, #p indicates the number of poors

Last edited on 2017-01-13 at 09:51:39 by insomniaglet

I don't keep anything with 3 or more poors but that's just my probably arbitrary rule. I basically breed similar confos to each other but I try to match so that I'm not putting two poors together.

My preference for store horses is two or less poor traits, though ideally 0 or 1.
I also try to stay above 58 total conformation.

the exact formula for conformation inheritance is still unknown, but it seems to be an average plus/minus a random variable, leaning more heavily towards the plus. With that in mind, to increase conformation in future generations, its best to match pairs so that any poors in one horse are offset by a significantly higher score in their mate. I personally prefer to pair a poor trait with no less than 60 in the other horse (though 65+ if i can manage it!)

I'll go look at your Clydes now, since my phone doesn't like when i switch tabs. I'll come back and edit this post soon :)

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i wouldn't keep the 57.38 with the poor back and legs because her poors are SO low (40.00). The other 57.38 is probably okay.

keep the bay 57.00 and the bay 56.13 because their poors are relatively high

i wouldn't keep the 53.28 bay because while she does only have 1 poor, the rest of her scores are low enough that they would probably just bring down the overall conformation regardless of the stallion your paired her with.

i've spent close to 500k on store arabians to get good conformation, so it is a pricy endeavor!

Last edited on 2017-01-13 at 12:35:07 by ᴋᴀʜᴢɪᴇ ɪ

Thanks kahzie, I'm okay with spending the money for them. Thanks for your insight; so far with my other lines I've been just breeding to avoid going below 50 average confo so I really don't have much experience with increasing it.

yeah, with conformation as a big goal of mine now, i basically buy hundreds of stores and ignore everything but the conformation scores. Color and stats are improveable with time and money, but conformation scores can only be improved through breeding.

i personally love the extra difficulty and challenge that breeding for confo to the game; with enough money anyone can have a beautiful horse, and money can also help 'buy' stats (i.e. via special treats like easter bouquets), but nothing but diligent planning and a heavy dose of luck will get you a horse with great conformation bred from post-recode store lines :)

Yes, you'll see the best improvement if you breed horses with higher confo that offset a poor. If you have poor shoulders then try to breed with a horse with excellent shoulders. However, keep in mind how the other points match up, sometimes you have to go with poor shoulders all around if it benefits the other points more for a better foal overall.