HGG Community Forums

Tattoos help enormously! I have 13 slots currently in use, and that doesn't count DHH tattoos!

I'm not one with thousands, but I do use the herd download (upgrade feature) fairly often. The pastures are a godsend when it comes to breeding.

I don't pay much attention at all to my show horses.

I use the search NUMEROUS times a day looking for different qualities in my own barns. I do a lot of searching by tattoo, and I like searching by barn ID because it tosses up pictures of the horses, and I am MUCH better at remembering things visually than just by reading a name or description. I also use it a lot just to search for an individual horse by name, and to sort auction and/or for sale horses (again, because I can get the picture).

I'm one of those that doesn't like numbers and extra letters in a horses name, so I don't sort that way.

I keep the mares in the same pasture(s) and rotate the stallions. My pastures are sorted by color, mostly , and then by generation. I have 1 Liver Foundation mares pasture, one 2G and S+ liver mares, two Foundation liver mares pastures, etc.

I do have thousands. Like, lots of thousands.

So first, my show ponies go in big barns as I sort them out as foals. My barns are set to auto show and they are set and forget. I don't look at them again unless they start coming up with large amounts of damages...or they make it high up on the leaderboards.

My pastures are divided and named by generation and color. I move mares into pastures as room becomes available and I mix up my stallions slightly again according to what I have available to work with in that generation. Sorting mares into pastures is relatively easy because all of my intact horses carry a suffix on their name which tells me their special genes, their base color and patterns and their generation. I can tell by glancing at any horse's name what color and generation they are.

When I breed, I make notes on broodmare pages as I cull new foals. Mares that aren't living up to my standards are culled and sold, thus making room in pastures for younger mares. I make notes about foals spelded by free testing or papering and foals with low enough PTs to be sent to auction. I also look at each mare's Average Foal Performance Test score and cull mares if this falls below my cutoff for that generation, as well as for having lots of spelded foals. I also paper mares once they have enough foals and this also plays into my broodmare culling.

Foals are named, given the appropriate suffix if needed, tattooed if needed, and sorted into appropriate barns in my foal culling process. Generally fillies and spelds are easily sorted, while colts tend to be grouped until I have time to look at the ones that live up to my standards and compare them to what I already have standing at that generation. I don't cull colts on color until this point, preferring to cull based on breeding ability and then sell if I have any excess cream of the crop.

Stallions live in barns sorted by generation and are periodically reviewed for breeding performance or as my color goals shift.

I also make use of tattoos, mostly so that I can quickly access a list of horses with a specific gene, especially the hidden genes. This allows an extra comparison tool but is mostly used for sales or for use in forum examples!

Wow! That sounds like a ton of work and time! I've always admired you stock, Cheers. And love seeing your horses pop up on the forum. Now I know more about how they are produced. How long did it take you to work out an efficient way to sort\cull\and store all of them?

I'm in the same boat! I've been on and off with this game for years but never understood. When I was 17 I took genetics as a side class and imidiantly wanted more. I remembered this site and fired back up a year ago and can't get enough!

When I understand a new gene after a month of testing, research and countless questions I can't contain my excitement and spout it off to my significant other. He understands none of it but is nice enough to listen regardless.

I can't wait to reach 500 horses, I'll probably have a little contest to celebrate. Time to save up for barns in the meantime :-\"

Mine is the same way CG. He listens and let's me jabber on about the different genetics of the horses on here.

I don't have as many as others, four barns and one pasture. I still just have foundations in my pastures. I do put generation numbers in their names so it's easier to track as well as other code letters for various reasons. I try and religiously show everybody all week since I don't have the auto shower. I'm still trying to cull at the moment, mainly on stallions right now. As I get enough money to test them. I squeak by usually ha!

I only have about 700 horses on HJ2, but many thousands on HJ1! Mostly I just use their name to clue me in! Everything initially gets named with their generation, and sometimes their era. Stallions I use get named and I mostly remember my stallions names so from that I can work it out. Breeding is easy as I can quickly search for a particular stallion or mare of a certain generation and era. I do often tattoo things like Kp, GP and satin in case I want to breed more of them, but mostly as long as they are the same generation and era I'm am fine with them being bred together. Pastures make it easy too as I just have a pasture for every generation and era, and just have to choose what stallion goes in with them

I also have thousands of horses, and only one tattoo. I use the 'search' most, and the 'herd download' second. I try and put a certain name in my potential breeders. But for the show horses, I just name them anything I happen to be looking at or a song I hear. I have even been know to write a name down as my husband is driving, that I see on a sign or something. I always have a 'G' for the first letter of gelding show horses, and an 'S' for spayed show horses.

My first buckskin foundation I named Hunters Moon, since a friend of mine in Oregon had just sent me a photo she took of the hunter's moon in e-mail. I have a baby name book from ages ago, when I had my son, I will thumb through that for my show horses. All my homozygous GP's have Gulastra in their names. My heterozygous or potential heterozygous GP's have either Antique, Carousel, Bielas or Comet in their names. My browns have either Mystery or Doodles in their name. My Cuyamaca and Click Clack liver chestnut lines have, Cuyamaca Click, Clack or Campfire, and Hunter or Moon in my buckskin line. My heterozygous Nexus always start with Nx, and foals from a hetero Nexus always start with FNx. That way I don't put someone up for public breeding, that is not supposed to be put up for public breeding on the rare gene horses I have. Or, my GP horses that paid a LOT of real cash money, to GMT them into GP foundations. I GMT'ed mine when I had to pay real cash for them.

Then lastly I always have the generation number in the front of my breeders names. It has made it easier when I am looking for a particular breeder that I want to breed to the same sire or dam. I am kind of behind on changing the intact offspring names to show names when I geld or spay them though. :\">