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I just don't breed every season :P Which also gives me less horses in the long run. I had like 16K stalls that were filled to the brim when we had 2 month seasons. Now I have 10680 stalls, and never get close to filling them all (unless we have high probability of candy ponies, and then all those free stalls are priceless to create and auction).

I feel like breeding is kind of like dieting instead of small bowls it's small pastures. I keep mostly 10acre pasture for each generation. What doesn't fit, goes to auction. I do have a few 30 acre pastures for 2nd gens but only foundations and 2nd gens go into those 30acre pastures.

It cuts down on the amount of horses you try to keep each season.

I keep raising the PT score requirement to live in my barns. I'm up to 11 (If an altered foal has under an 11 PT I'm sending them to auction.) Plus I only allow myself 3 or fewer breeding mares per generation in the barns, and only 10 horse pastures, one for each generation (except Foundations)

I rotate through my breeding projects ... I do panic a little when my really GMT'd stock starts aging up, especially ones I've paid real money for ... so to lessen that ... its all game money now or no GMT's.

Now rotation ... I have 6 stable lines. Appy up to 6th gen, KIT up to 6th gen, both those lines in separate satin, fantasy line, and restricted line (have to buy the license) I have 8 pastures the main 100 pasture and 7 30 pastures (bought when the pasture sale was on when we switched) Those smaller pastures keep my numbers down. Auto show is on every barn so even those standing waiting are still making some money. (makes me feel better that they are still doing something heh )

Break down is as follows
Main pasture is Foundation, My chimera and whichever foundies are in there and GMT foundations (my foundations are broken down to spot and no spots ... same with chimera spots and no spots. I have a lot of barns, it has taken some serious work to organize but I know where everyone is)

Rest of the pastures are broke down by gens, and this is just one of the rotation.
Starting with main pasture all the Chimera No Spot and No Spot foundations; then all the KIT mares went into the pasture at the middle of last month ... so they have the 30+day bonus .. 2nd gen into 2nd gen and so on. Double check how old... if its their last season they will be bred and then off to the show barns ... so they aren't taking barn space.

The last three pastures are Project barns ... I rotate the smaller lines through there.
Everything is bred and put back, and the next group is put in and then its done ready for another season.

Everything needs to fit line requirements
1. Pass all testing
2. Sup to Sire and Dam
3. Needs to have line requirement (appy = PATN, Snowflake, Halo KIT=No Lp) the rest is just gravy (DFP1,Sun,Snow, Tiger Eye
4 And if I still have to many ... colour ... Bay is one I cut out

I keep all neutered ... they go into the show barn immediately (my show string is mostly from my breeding. I do one pasture at a time starting usually on the fifth ( I can do it one day, but sometimes take a few days)
Breed, take out the foals, cull them ... leave auction ones in main barn ... move mares out, put next rotation in, next pasture ... and work through. Remember my pastures are only 30, so numbers are small. I don't think this would work with really big pastures; but it might.

I don't do a lot of AI, usually its a ... got some time, and a few mares standing around sort of thing. I have also found that I usually have a mare open that if someone posts that way cool stud ... I have someone I can trot on over there.

And I have found with this I am always replenishing my show herd as it ages out. If I get to many older stock then into the show barns I go and auction everything over a certain age (unless its really paying out).

Not sure if this helps, but it was how I coped with the switch and still enjoy the game.

Ultimately it comes down to your own priorities & goals. If you want certain PTs by a certain generation, or this gene with that one, but not the other, etc.

One thing I'm currently doing is going through my breeding stock and identifying the horses I just love to look at. I note those genes & combinations, and what horses I need to breed to get them, and that helps me weed out older lines I don't love as much as newer ones.

If you have several different lines, you might cut your least favorite or the smallest?

If you don't already have this, making a list of your lines with the desired outcomes can really help clarify your long-term goals. (This game is the only place I'm this organized & goal-oriented, I swear.)

As for show horses, I think we're in the middle of establishing for good that higher PT is not necessarily better. Like 13.0+, that's always great, because they'll end up in 8W, and not at the very bottom of 8W either.

But like 10.9-12.6, is kinda questionable. They often end up in 8L or 8R, and those are not money making spots unless they level off in just the right spot and stay there. 12.7-12.9 sometimes seem to reach 8W, but only the very, very bottom.

Obviously if an adult horse has lots of points then that's all you need, but when deciding which youngsters to keep, that may help narrow them down. Last season I just ignored all my 3rd & 4th gens alters in favor of high PT foundations & 2nd gens.

Anyway, yeah, in the end, it's about what you want from the game and what you enjoy breeding most!

It felt strangely liberating to geld/spay the entirety of my 6th and 5th gen horses. I didn't look at them. Just mass gelded them after renaming them to their original ID numbers. I probably will do the same for my 4th gen horses, but maybe keep the foals from last season or the past 2 seasons after looking at their pedigrees.

Reduced my 4th gen boys to 12 and reduced 2 pastures worth of mares to 1 pasture. Working my way through 2nd gen now.

congrats just moving right along :)

One 3rd gen pasture is cleared, the 3yo and 2yo fillies for 3g has been sorted, still haven't made final decisions on which 2g boys to keep yet. So I'm down to that and one final pasture to sort before I'm down to one 100 horse pasture for each generation. So I'm making progress.

Wow, that's some great progress! I had recently decided to remove certain genes from my lines and had to go through and resort Everything in my barns, pastures and freezer as well last month and I think you will feel that its quite an achievement, I know I did when I was finally done! #:-S :)


Ps. And I'm pretty sure that I Still have way too many stallions per generation lol! :))

I'm not looking forward to cleaning my freezer out. Maybe if I do one horse per day, that'll be ok

Just take a day at a time, one foot in front of the other and you'll get there! :)

Ok, I've winnowed the 2nd gen boys down. Done with the breeding stock overhaul.

I'll worry about the freezer later, I need to take a break from all that culling.

I'm down to 373 mares of breeding age in pasture and about 50 stallions.

It was so nice and refreshing to be done with all of my pasture breeding, sorted the foals and so on before the 20th. I might still do some embryos, but not today. Was so nice not to have to rush things at the last minute.