HGG Community Forums

"Ok, so I have kinda considered myself a black sheep for accepting uneven bred horses,"

It really bothers me that others have made you feel this way. :(

This game is about having fun. There is nothing wrong with breeding uneven. You'd be pleasantly surprised and the higher quality of show pons you get from it..and remember, making money in this game is all about your show pons...
I think people just like the way the pedigrees "look" when they're even. Over time, you can breed that all out and they'll be full on both sides anyways pffft...
If the quality of the foals is improving...and helping boost your lines and show pons, annnnd...you're having fun breeding for colours you want..Thats all that matters!! Its all about having fun. There are no "standards" you have to conform to. :)
I bred a foundie mare of mine to your star stud to show you some support...Got me a gorgeous show gelding..11. 1 PT A papered..I expect he'll do well for me..

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Gosh, I started breeding some uneven lines before I took my hiatus. I was trying to match breeding quality and AFPT rather than generation, and I was having some luck. So sorry that you felt black sheepish! If I had been around more, i would have asked to trade lines or breed. Still up for it!!

When you breed seriously uneven, such as a high star to red or blue mares to "bootstrap" a line. You really can't use the in game testing. You just kind of have to play it by ear. I use in game testing on all the males of my bootstrapped lines, because I already have nice studs and I don't need the males to be intact. It also give me an idea of the quality level of the mares. (I am assuming that the mares and geldings of any given batch have similar sires and dams and will therefore be of relatively similar qualities.) If 5 out of 50 male horses are altered by the breeding test and all are altered by the strict test I know I have another generation or three to go with the mares before they will pass testing. If 30-40% of the males pass testing It's a pretty safe bet that a similar percent of the females will likely pass testing. I just keep breeding them back to high quality studs and they keep producing better and better foals. Eventually my mare quality should be pretty similar to my high studs quality and I can go back to using testing.

I also pay attention to the mare's average foal PT, which stud was used, what is his foal PT. Lots of work goes into breeding uneven quality lines because the testing won't tell you if you have improved on your mare or not. This is different than pairing mildly uneven horses, say, second gens bred to third gens. Those horses are easier to deal with, just treat them like you would any other third gen horse. If you are only keeping superior sires they will probably pair nicely with a third gen stud.

I've been playing the game for several years now, and I have kind of seen patterns, where people go through phases. When folks first join and they are still getting their feet wet breeding can be a bit indiscriminate. Breeding whatever to whatever is available. Then folks learn a little bit more about the game and they get really into even breeding. If they stick with it long enough even breeding lines stagnate and folks start to experiment to figure out what works. This seems like a pretty standard thing, as games go. You start out not knowing anything, you learn how things work, then you try to work out a strategy to continue advancing. You're just at the "working the strategy" stage.

Ok, thanks everyone. I'm not too concerned about being a black sheep, I was just stating things. (I am going to school to learn entomology, the study of insects, so I have learned to wear that hat proudly, sorry if I gave the wrong impression. My frustration is more about how I started getting star and gold with fifth generation, and then the past little bit I've been getting better foals from my fourth gens, and I think once third gens than I have from my fifth gens with my star boy. lol) I know the fact that with all the different gens going on it didn't work to give mares pasture bonus definitely had its hand in this, so I have my pasture full of mares and breeding them to the same stallions and we'll see what change this makes. I'me hoping to have at least a dozen gold mares by the end of the four months that I am guaranteed to have Solemn still, maybe more golds, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that till I see how next month goes. haha


Ok, Bourbon. Hope I will have lots of nice ones with good papers behind them. With this breeding strategy I don't intend to keep anything lower than blue intact. :)
And rose, yep, I know how trying not to do the game at school goes. haha. Where are you going?

Widspun, the gelding looks great. Hope he turns out to be a champion for you. That's exactly why I don't want his father to go to waste.

Mabelhavana, that is similar to how I have been breeding recently, matching them around different gen qualities, but really putting the mares in the category their quality best matches. If you're up for trading lines or what not let me know. I'm going to try to take advantage of the higher quality studs at the moment and try to get a population of mares closer to their level, but I'me still keeping all of my mares at the moment, and several of them will even be available to breed to if you want to after I get a feel for which qualities do what I am looking for.

Yep starfire, I don't expect any of these foals I will be producing to be able to pass breeding advice, but I do expect some will be far superior to the rest of my horses and the foals I would have made if I was breeding evenly, so I will have to spend the money to paper them first and cull based off of that. I intend to keep golds, spay reds and yellows, and with blues look at the quality of blue fillies' mothers and the number of golds I get to decide if they get to stay. All the keepers will have to have testing turned off after initial testing is done, because as Dark Star described in her post, the breeding advice is a mass spay/ gelding button. haha

Haha, yes, Dark star, I will be careful about the breeding advice button with these foals. I'll probably use it on most of the colts, but since I'me hoping to get mares that are higher quality than my low star boys by the time my high star boy ages out I am trying to decide how I want to go about replacing my high boy. There are a few of my highest mares that I would probably test colts they threw to see if they are higher than my fifth gen boys, but for the most part the boys will be run through testing to get gelded.

Yay Salvistar! The Black Sheep club is an awesome place. Together we can rule the world. I need to take down names so I can talk to people later. Once I finish getting the groundwork for my higher herd down I will probably organize my current mares back into their ten 1-5 quality brackets. Let's see how that goes. So I should have good selection of different horses, and there are even horses in the 1-5 groups, but at least for the next little bit only one of my gold mares will be even, and she isn't my best gold even now... Though I only have two. haha

Thanks. I'll have to think about that. This is mainly based off my one stud, and I have a pasture full of mares that will max him out, but I have way more mares that will still need boys. I lined up my next four highest quality boys for the rest of the mares. They don't hold a candle to the one boy. They should all boost foal quality though. I am mainly breeding for sooty black based duns with various modifier genes. Not breeding for satin, but already have it in my boys so I am ignoring it for now and let's see what the herd will look like. Haha I am hoping to bring in more sooty plus and dp with my mares, but here are the boys of mine I am looking at. Straws from outside sides would be cool, particularly like the quality with Titan if you would be willing to let me use straws of his in this project. The other two look cool too, especially the dun. Have to think which mares I would use them on.

Ok awesome yea let me know if or when you would like straws I'd be willing to part with straws from the two studs you picked but I'd rather let straws go from the two ice studs over Titans but if you really like him over the other two then I'm sure we can work out a deal.

.I really like Singular and of course any Cheers bred horses they will make some nice quality foals I can't wait to see the foals you get :D

Your very welcome I'm glad I can help ill sell them to you for cheap because I want to keep his line going and I'm not going to be using him. And yes Dark Star and Cheers are great at this game I have a lot of horses from Cheers and they have given me lots of Stars and golds plus horses that improve their lines I have some horses from Dark Star both Colts I got are from a great stud named Invested they are pearl Kitm and satin very pretty :D