HGG Community Forums

I run a 100 mare pasture to produce my G2 herd. I refresh them on occasion (I try to keep my AFPT higher than their own PT for each gen). I would say it isn't off the wall to expect roughly 10 to 30 Blues & A's each season for me, higher end for full pasture bonus, lower end for less.

This season I had (because I was a dummy and forgot the broodmares in the primary barn for showing purposes overnight... they reset their pasture bonus in the middle of last month. Had I been smart, I would have waited to auto-breed but my patience stinks) a total of 6 new G2s, including 1 new herdsire but had a total of 17 Blues & A papers, unfortunately mostly colts. Sometimes I'll GMT a couple colts to Fillies at the beginning of each month after awards.

I remember my first cut to Blue & A... I thought the same thing you are. I now run a 60 & 30 pasture of G2s, and the only division is that I keep my loud colored fantasy in one pasture, and the more plain ones in the other.

Oh, and ps... culling doesn't get any easier by cutting lower quality! It just makes you get more creative. Haha!

Do I start with one line and go from there? My lines have been kind of all over the place which doesn't help. Would you start with stallions first?

As Seaswell said, start by picking out favorites and snip the rest! If you have a hard time with favorites and get too many, then just repeat the process as many times as necessary. Be brutal with yourself if you have to - do you really need two studs that are from the same line with only one or two genes difference? Comp test them to each other and get rid of the lower one, or pick your favorite if they test AGA, and you can even GMT on missed genes. If you're really attached to a stud but know he's really not quite as good as another but you can't bear to snip him, then genderswap him into a mare. See if you can narrow it down to five or fewer studs per line, and if you have more than ten lines now might be a good time to consider merging some as well.

Is SBA done through premium though? Right now I can't do that. My highest gen is 6g. I guess I need to look at the stallions and give them the generation number they are so I can look at them better.
I have a collectible line. I have fantasy horses to. A buckskin line in honor of my brother even though I think I will need to start over with it. Not sure how to combine lines.

I personally find a benchmark stallion for each generation, then only test my colts against him, anything worse than him automatically get the snip. And if I happen to get a superior colt then I have a new benchmark. Only testing against one stallion, saves me a ton of comparison testing since I know if they test aga the benchmark then they would test superior to sire. I am brutal with my breeding horses I have over 5k total, 300 mares, and less than 30 stallions. I have a 30 stall stud barn and they all have to fit in it.

My advice for cutting your stud herd down to a more manageable number quickly. I would geld anything over 8 that you haven’t bred yet. For me I know if I don’t like them enough to breed them by that age then I will never use them.

He'd make a great stud for a bootstrap line if you're needing show ponies.
If your 5g star boys were worse than 4g, I'd snip em. I overhauled my lines a year ago. It was tough, but I just had too many (and still do lol)
I'd definitely go thru and add their gen number to their names. If they're uneven, give em a UE so you know. If you're wanting to stick to even breeding, this will be the best way to figure out who's gunna make the cut. I've found it easier to add to the beginning it saves you time later. Once you have them labeled, you can sort them by gens into smaller groups so it's not as overwhelming.
I used to have a couple dozen lines going, now I have fantasy and non in both even bred and Bootstraps, plus a herd of demon ponies. I just grouped all my lines with fantasy genes together was my easiest way to combine lines. I started off bootstrapping so figuring out even breeding was trial and error lol.
Anywho, back to the cull. Take all the boys you've labeled as say, 2g(this'll be the easiest batch) and probably without even giving any a look over to pull at your heart cut out all B papered studs. Move them to a spare barn to give a last look thru later for any of your rarer genes that you may need a sup b stud to pass on. The barn with the B studs, just think of as your for sale/auction barn. Give your A boys in primary a look over and ask yourself if you really will use them. Do they have enough going on to stay? If not, sell em. (Or by all means geld as many as you can for all papers and stuff your show barns) then just repeat with all the gens you have. Set a goal in mind, if you have a star 4g, then keep mostly star 4gs to breed. I'd probably hunt thru and comp test once you have your numbers down to find a benchmark for each gen, it's so helpful. Keep in mind how many mares you have to breed in each gen and keep just enough studs, plus maybe a couple extra if they're really good to get those mares covered. I did all this without premium, it takes longer, but is doable.