HGG Community Forums

Cheers · Jan 26, 2016 3:52 PM

So...I'm culling my mares and having a hard time doing it.

I have a lot of 4 to 6 year old foundation brood mares. Obviously they don't have many foals on the ground. While I am trying to impose a 3 strikes policy, I need to do a pretty hard cull this season. So my question is this--if I have a mare with only 1 or 2 foals on the ground and her average foal PT is lower than her PT even though she's been bred to top stallions (perfect foundations or rank specials), should I cull her? Oh yeah, and there will be lots of Ausmerican foundation brood mares in the auctions for the next week or so...

Abbey Road · Jan 26, 2016 5:25 PM

AFPT is a really good basis to cull on, in my opinion, although an "average of one" isn't, really. I'm not sure I would cull based on a single foal's PT, unless of course you're not that fond of the mare anyway.

Abbey Road · Jan 26, 2016 5:32 PM

I'm going to throw an example out, for the heck of it.

http://hj2.huntandjump.com/horse.php?horseid=131818

This mare's PT is 11.7, AFPT is 11.53. She's produced everything from 11.1 to 12. She's got a pile of *Gold mares and *Star stallions (and geldings) among her foals. If I went by her first foal, which is an A gelding with a PT of 11.3, I'd have missed out on a few very good babies (and show ponies).

Food for thought. :)

Cheers · Jan 26, 2016 5:40 PM

So, Abbey, this is my issue. Of the 700 or so gen 2 foals I put on the ground this season, probably 40 were culled outright for having PTs lower than 9.5 (my gen 2 cutoff). Of those, probably half were also spayed or gelded by the free tests. I tried to get rid of those mares as I went if it was their first foal. If not, I made a note and its counting as 2 strikes in the 3 strike policy, but that still only covers a very small portion of my mares. I've probably culled or sold another 60...but I really need to cull another 200 or so (because I've had a few create sprees with good HHs) and I'm just struggling!!! Halfway through my pastures and a long way to getting a manageable cohort of foundation mares...

Anyone want to volunteer to cull my girls for me?

Abbey Road · Jan 26, 2016 5:54 PM

My suggestion would be to decide on an AFPT benchmark for that particular generation. Anybody with 2 foals and an AFPT less than that gets booted. Rather than using the mare's PT to gauge it.

Are you culling yellows? I'd start there.

Cheers · Jan 26, 2016 6:13 PM

yep, culling most yellows. A few get to stay because their breeder (me) was an idiot at stallion selection for their first few foals and they've since produced excellent kids.

Members log in here:
Username:
Password:
By hitting the above you signify that you agree with our rules and conditions.
Forgot your password?

HGG Community Forums

Join our discord server!

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Who's Online (0)

Join our discord server!

Enlarge Your Pastures

Reminders!