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Herzeloyde · Jan 3, 2023 1:48 AM

As I am rebuilding my barns, I've decided to start all over, on a much smaller scale. The straws and eggs from my old lined horses will be the base of my new show string, so that is taken care of.

I want to use my foundation horses, combined with new ones, to create a small, manageable high-quality line with a lot of fun and interesting genetics, just to enjoy and have fun. I want it to be so manageable, that I can hand-breed them because I discovered that pasture breeding is good for the economy and great for producing show horses, but it also takes out the excitement, magic, fun, and thrill of breeding for me. I want to go back to basics and play more similar to how I did in the beginning.

But as I have always been a mega-barn, I don't have much experience in small herds. What are your top tips for managing small herds?
How many breeding horses is the minimum/maximum you would recommend for a line that will, in theory at least, mainly be hand-breed?
How important are eras now? Are older eras unattractive?
Do you focus on breeding the same era to the same era, and breeding as new era as possible, or is that not so important?
Other things to think of?

WhiteValley · Jan 3, 2023 6:27 AM

If you want to keep it manageable for hand breeding then I would suggest 20 - 25 mares per generation with two or three stallions. This will partly depend on how diverse you want the gene pool to be. Personally, I don't bother with eras, just paper levels. Also, if you can, do a comparison test of each foal to their parent, and, for lined generations, do benchmark testing. That will help you to keep the numbers down.

boredaf · Jan 3, 2023 9:02 AM

I run a hybrid. I use only red/b foundies with 10 mares to a pasture with a primary pasture of 60 and 'step' pastures of 30 on either side of the prime gen. This more than suits my needs you could probably get by with 30 in your primary gen and 10 in all the others. I'd reccomend keeping no more than 2 studs per gen but with a high turnover to keep the breeding fresh.

CrowsnestRidge · Jan 3, 2023 1:02 PM

I’ve also downsized breeding and I’ve found having at least 20 foundation mares is helpful to ensure you get enough superior second gen mares to go forwards. That said, I’m not boosting or maxing out abilities much so you could probably get away with fewer if you are. If you have 50+ foundation mares it might be pretty time consuming to hand breed especially when your next generations start breeding too.

If you’re hand breeding you could have several stallions rather than one or two for added variety. I would still probably not use more than 5 foundations for simplicity.

I don’t pay much attention to eras as I don’t think it matters much unless you’re trying to get primary era awards in the breeders club.

Good luck!

Ammit · Jan 4, 2023 9:53 PM

If you want to chase the LB with this new herd you need to care about eras. Otherwise, it is ok to ignore them.

Fiddler · Jan 4, 2023 10:07 PM

What is chase the LB?

LEAcres · Jan 5, 2023 4:41 AM

@Fiddler think of it at the racehorse term "Run for the Roses", your running to win. Chase the leader board is the same. Your chasing a place on the leader board.

Fiddler · Jan 5, 2023 6:16 AM

Ah LB is leader board thanks

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