Not all of them have made it hard on me, so I am just going to talk about my "keepers" at this point.
The first baby to make the "keeper" list is Velvet. She is by Extremely Good II and Velveeta. Her COI takes a significant drop down to 2.6%. Although her sire has a lot of my lines him, he also brings brand new names to Velvet's pedigree. I think she is a great start to my goals here.
The next filly is Dyla and she is out of the late Mr. Banned and Supernatural Asphixiation. When she weans, her dam will be for sale, but Dyla looks like a great addition to my Appendix lines, bringing the cream and sabino 2 genes, as well as her fantastic temperament. Her COI is an awesome 0.23%.
GR has to be one of the neatest colts I have ever seen. I fell in love with his mahogany bay coat, but then learned he is in fact, grey. He is out of NCh Bold Movin on the Bay and Gunz N Rosez. I am going to keep him for a bit to see how he develops. I am not being as critical of my Appendix Horses as I am the Quarter Horses, so we will see.
When I do make a decision GR's future at Winchester, it will be by comparison to his half brother Sho Stopper.
My next filly is yet another Appendix, Bravery. She is also out of NCh Bold Movin On the Bay. I am starting to see how restricting my stallions to a specific number of outside and home mares would work more positively in my favor. I have a lot of great potential show horses here, but generation by generation, I am tying them together, just as I have done with my Quarter Horse herd. At any rate, this beautiful filly will hang out with me for a while why I try to decide, filly or colts?
Tiberious is an American Quarter Horse colt and he brings a lower COI and new blood to my herd. Both his sire and dam have my lines in them, but they also have two seperate lines that have not been used in my program before.
I will update with another entry when the rest of the babies are born. I think I am doing a good job of being objective and trying really hard to not let the "shiney" as Bactris puts it, get to me. I have already sold several mares and foals, and have listed several colts, stallions, and show horses. I will be listing more as these foals are born and I can make preliminary decisions on their purpose with Winchester Performance.
EDIT To add Foals!
I am not sure what this little girl is just yet, but Sketches sure is adorable! She is Appendix bred and out of Sage, but wow this baby is beautiful! She has low COI and I do plan on keeping her :)
Mystery is one of the newest colts born. He got his name because he got the cream gene from somewhere making him a smoky black. The latter part of this season has got my mind boggled trying to figure out where these dilutions are coming from! :)
Flare will be the one foal I keep based on her color alone. I absolutely LOVE her pangare and hope to make lots of apricot dun babies with her!
Pictures Property of Snow Wolfe Games
Wow, if I had to choose based on color alone it would be extremely difficult. Being on the culling end of things myself, it helps me figure out what I want when I watch others go through the process. Could you expand on specific numbers for outside stallions that you intend to use and how many mares you plan to keep? Just being nosy but it also helps me figure out what I am doing.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, I don't mind sharing at all! With regards to color, it plays a small role only in the sense of what it can add. For a while all I was breeding and getting were chestnuts, so I started adding dun, cream, silver, and champagne to my herd just to spice things up. Color doesn't matter in terms of performance or quality, my eyes just got really tired of looking at red! As for the stallions, I am more open to using more outside stallions. What I have done though, is picked a few stallions I really really liked and overbred them. This year I bred way too many mares to Bold Movin On the Bay and Extremely Good II. So what I have are a whole bunch of babies that are related to one another. So, in the future, I would like to use more outside stallions with different lines in them and breed one or two mares to them per season tops. Then, I will make only so much semen available to the public, that way, other players are limited to how much they can breed to my stallions. I am hoping that will help make it easier for me and others to pick stallions that aren't all related to each other.
ReplyDeleteAs for mares, I am down to 7 homebred quarter horse mares and 1 homebred appendix mare. I have picked up a few mares from Painted Lady and Still More Farms so I when I breed this year, it should be with relatively fresh blood. I do plan on culling further as the foals are born and hoping to get my total mare count down to no more than 15-20. To cull them further, I am looking really hard at show scores if they have them, COI, and whether or not I know their fitness ratings.
Excellent work and gorgeous foals! We're still waiting on 25 more mares to foal here and I'm thoroughly exhausted, but still had to giggle at the "Shiny". My own barn has filled up more "internal glare" as I slowly put together the different groups and decide who is going where, who is staying, and who is simply necessary for farm funds at the moment. Culling is hard when nearly 1/3 of the horses are show string.
ReplyDeleteI think you are making excellent steps towards improving things and I definitely approve of the limit of public semen. I've turned to the same method and intend to geld stallions after public and private semen has been taken. This should not only help to improve line conditions, but also allow other farms to gain some great show stock with really level heads out of the eventual geldings.
You make a great point about geldings. Thats exactly what a rl breeder would do. I am also considering doing the same. Well bred show horses are great especially to those looking to earn a few dollars and build their ranches up.
DeleteI still have 8 mares to foal yet, so I think I have had an easier time than I thought I would with getting my numbers down. I am preparing to make my final sweep through the broodmares and critically assess them, but it looks like I am going to make my goal of 15 broods.
I have sold off a few show horses, but only because they were so closely related to everything else in my line and I look forward to running by your place and meeting your babies as well.
Heh, I know where some of those show horses are stabled now as well. That's the hardest part for me, letting good show stock go. I end up taking more in, but in the end it works out great because my show stock is a necessity around here and new show stock means I can let some of the other show stock move on.
DeleteThe gelding was something that came to mind when thinking of real breeding and showing farms for sure. Plus I was a bit curious to see if a few of my GCh boys would do better after being gelded since I already have their semen stored and the public semen listed. It is a good test period since I would eventually be selling those boys anyway as I've gained enough younger show stock to cover their usual earnings.
Tough decisions there Marshall, I don't envy you at all.
ReplyDeleteYou aren't kidding Cheri! But I will tell you something surprising, I have found that once I started eliminating horses, it was almost hard for me to stop and leave something to build with!
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