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Silent Star Stables · May 1, 2015 1:38 PM

So just out of curiosity, what are everyone's culling strategies? Since I have a fairly new freebie account (although I did play long ago), I have to cull for space so I can keep some babies. Since freebie barns only hold 20 horses, I like to only keep a max of 5 foals per year so I still have room in the barn for money makers. This season will be my first using the pasture for breeding which I look forward to. I love that the pasture gives you the option of breeding more mares without having to make space as you make babies like you had to in the barns; and that you have more babies to choose the best from (for those of us with limited space)! :)

What factors decide who you get rid of to make room for the next seasons foal crop? I realize players with upgraded and/or older accounts that have lots of money can buy extra space for their ponies and may only have to cull to keep herd standards up. But I'm just curious how other people plan when and when not to keep, or for people like me, who to let go. Since I need 5 open stalls for each new season, I like to make 3 lists consisting of 6 horses. Each list is figured individually with the "worst" ranking horses for that category: Current level, Earned show points, and Points gained per training session. After the horses are in order, I score them based on where they fall in each category, then combine those scores. Horses with the lowest total scores get cut from the barn and are either sold or sent to the breeding pasture (if they are better than someone else already there). :)

What is your culling strategy for either space or maintaining herd quality?

Baya · May 1, 2015 1:57 PM

Colts who paper lower than their sire,inconstant colts or filkies .

dark star · May 1, 2015 2:09 PM

I cull all spayed and gelded horses. My mares only spend a few years in the pastures breeding for me and after that they become my show stock. On top of showing, any mare retired from breeding has an annual "for profit" baby for me. A baby that is bred in the pasture and directly put in the auction. I don't test them, I don't even look at them. They just get sold.

It helps that I have enough pastures to work with, but "for profit" mares only have to be in there for 15 minutes, then you can put all your nice mares back in the pasture.

I find that this method earns me a significant amount of HBs. The showing system is set with HJ1's 2 month long years in mind. Horses over there have more time to train before leveling off, putting them in a higher point earning catagory. More time to show and earn points, and more time to have those points earn a barn money. I did the math once and a show horse on HJ2 will earn 12.5% of the HB's a show horse on HJ1 will earn in it's lifetime. When they are making so little the showing difference between an altered or an unaltered horse is very small. By having my show string be unaltered mares those mares can earn me an extra 2000hb's a month. On HJ2 keeping unaltered horses is more profitable than keeping "showers".

This is especially true for small barns. If you only have 10 spots for show horses, which is going to make you more money, 10 altered horses that need to mature and earn points slowly, or ten mares who can earn almost the same number of points and earn you a garaunteed 20k hb's a month starting at age 4?

Earning that kind of money you will be able to buy more barns pretty quickly. Then you don't have to worry about culling so much.

Abbey Road · May 2, 2015 4:10 PM

I use a strategy pretty much like dark star's.... I do keep some altered show stock, but only higher generation (6 gen +), high PT horses with the potential to level off high.... and if I was working with very limited space and hand showing, I probably wouldn't keep those. I also have barns of "broodmares" who only produce sell-off stock for me every season, and they are about half of my show stock. I keep a pasture in reserve for these mares, which I rotate into the pasture, but you could do the same with your primary pasture too, if you breed them, then put your breeding to keep stock right back in, and keep track of the date pastures run so you can get your 30-day bonus by breeding on the same day every month.

So, I cull most altered stock. If I had limited room, I'd cull almost all colts and keep to mares. I'd cull mares HARD... if you're pasture breeding you'll have difficult decisions, so if they're passing all testing and all other things are equal, cull based on which colors you like best or are closest to what you're breeding for.

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