HGG Community Forums

Are you using a C papered stallion in the yellow pasture? Breeding a B stud to yellow mares will decrease your intact rate because of the difference in quality of the parents.

Personally, I try to breed mostly from B/Red foundations, but that is because I like the boost in quality. The few yellow mares I put in pasture are bred to B studs. I don't mind the increased snip rate because the foals that do make it through testing are higher quality anyways.

If I am going to GMT a stud I tend to do it on a C stallion as I get more intacts to pass the genes on. Maybe I should rethink that ;)

I use a 60 acre pasture for my yellow foundations and use 2 C papered studs. I do miss individual breeding...which is why I considered moving some of my foundations back to my barn. How do you guys separate who stays in the pasture and who comes back in? Age maybe?

I do pretty much what Fallen does -- my foundations go into pasture regardless, until I have enough second gens to bump them out. I do feel like foundations don't need the pasture bonus as much as higher generation mares do.

I don't have any problems starting with C/Yellow, though for lines where my primary foundation stud is a B, I try to use Red mares. I don't obsess about it too much though. Everything goes through SBA and if they don't pass, well, there's another pretty show horse!

For some of my older lines, my foundation stallions are about to age out, and I'm not planning on replacing them, so once that stud is done, I'll just move on to gen 2 entirely and remove/snip any remaining foundies for that line.

I actually prefer pasture breeding to hand breeding, so I will occasionally slip some mares in for short or no bonus pasture breedings, just to get things done. (For me, sorting foals is the fun part.)

Ok thanks everyone. I may cull some of my yellow girls and concentrate more on red foundations in my pasture. Mayne just pull older girls (maybe 16 and older) out of the pasture to make room for aging up fillies.