HGG Community Forums

Most players (myself included) keep way too many stallions. Usually the first place to reduce numbers is in the stallion barn—if you aren’t totally in love, if they have even one gene you’re not keen on, snip them or sell them, especially if you have a stallion of the same generation in the same line you prefer. Comparison test. Cull on consistency. Be MEAN. Wield those triple crunch emasculators like your life depends on it! (Yes, technically they’re for bulls, not stallions, but I love talking about them!)

Then the mare barns. I’m working on replacing all of my foundation Yellow mares with Reds, and slowly working up to all Blues at gen 2. That could be a way to go. Another is to look at your AFPTs and cull based on that, but remember to compare apples to apples (similar stallion quality, same pasture bonus).

As far as juggling space in the pasture, you’ve got a choice. Focus on the generation you’re working on most actively and give those mares the pasture time, rotate monthly for full bonus, or rotate every 15 days so everyone gets half bonus. All that said, I also have fingers quietly crossed for some upcoming sales and there often are sales for Black Friday/Cyber Monday and also around Christmas too.

You can certainly use those mares for surrogates! They can stay up in the barns and earn HBs but double as a "rent a uterus" once each month, or put em up for public brood and make a buck or two!

My secondary hj2 account is going to be using AFPT to cull mares. I currently have a 60 & a 10 acre pasture filled with foundation mares that have currently had 2 foals. Next month I will go through and calculate each mares AFPT and replace the bottom mares with some other foundation mares with better colouring for what I’d like to aim for. The 10 acre pasture will probably get 2nd Gen mares. The altered foals will be sorted into my other barns and the lowest pointed horses will be put into the auction.

@Dunbroc If you're scared of SBA, start with one generation at a time - foundies first, then second gens, etc etc - and leave your favorites alone if need be. The SBA button can help you decide between ones that are at the bottom of your favorite pile first to help reduce numbers without doing a huge cull. (And if the horse is higher papered than both parents, you can hit SBA with no worries).

All these are wonderful ideas and a lot of them it took me about a year to figure out!! I SBA all my foundations and 95% of my 2Gs. I did do away with alot of yellow papered mares and am focusing on breeding mainly Excellent Producers. Unless they're really pretty mares, I won't waste pasture time on them if they haven't had at least two foals that aren't gelded/spayed by the age of seven. I have several pastures, the primary pasture is strictly for foundations that just stay in there and then I have two 10 acre pastures that I use to rotate the horses in to breed and then either turn them back out to the barns or to pasture depending on their showing points. I sell or snip anything below the parents PT.