HGG Community Forums

I've recently upped my breeding standards, so this is what I do in my herd now. Pick a benchmark for your 2nd gens and then compare to that. I would only keep boys that are superior to your benchmark AND their sires. Keeping boys that are AGA doesn't help your line progress. I run all my boys through testing to weed out some and then I paper the remaining boys. Anything that papered lower than their sire gets snipped immediately. If you want to spend the money on the boys that papered the same as their sire that's up to you. I don't even bother comparison testing the Bs anymore, they just get snipped immediately since I have 2 2nd Gen A papered boys as my benchmarks. I dont know if you do this already, but I would highly recommend NOT looking at any of the babies until they go through testing. That way you don't feel quite as devastated when your favorite one doesn't make it through testing.

As for your question about the ExPerfs and Expros, I would guess that they are high B's. I've had several A paperd 2G boys out of 3 different ExPerf studs now. In my foundation lines I use only Perf foundations and Ranks Specials to make sure that I am starting with the best babies possible. As a result I've had some really nice babies this year and last year.

I know it's super hard snipping all those boys. Especially the pretty ones. I can admit to having a few that I haven't snipped yet just because they are so pretty. I know I'll probably cry a little the day I do snip them, which will be soon.

Perfect Example...
These two boys are beautiful and one of them is hom KP, BUT they are only AGA their sire and worse than my benchmark. So they must be snipped. It truly sucks.

BH2 Night Song KP

BH2 Bird Rhythm HKP
Unfortunately they just aren't as good as their brother who will join the ranks with my other 2G benchmarks

BH2 War Song HKP

If your 2G boys are testing superior to their sire and superior to the expros then I'd say that's pretty darn good. I personally think that the experfs are on the mid to high side of the B's. So if your boys are testing superior to them I would say they are on the high side of the B's and close to being A's. That being said, you're so close to hitting the A mark I would keep trying for an A. I don't know how many foals you're breeding a year, but in the last two breeding seasons I've bred 75ish foundation babies and only 4 of them papered A. You'll have better luck breeding the experf/expros together although one of mine was an Experf x TNP. I hope this answers your question better.