It's unavoidable and neccesary, and for me it's downright SCARY! I have spent several generations shaping and forming my Quarter Horse lines into what I wanted. On the upside, I now have a herd of incredible horses with talent, but on the downside I am watching the COI slowly creep through the roof. I am always searching for fresh blood and new lines that wont reduce what I have worked so hard to build, but alas, this is beginning to affect my herd in ways I don't want. For example, I am seeing a universal trait across the board with reductions in speed and now intelligence.
The problem comes in with trying to decide who stays and who goes. Each and every one of my broodmares have something to offer my program that I am either in need of or hoarding. Precious blood lines such as Reyn, Silver Duet, Lotto Jackpot, and My Own Mudpit are hard to find, but run plentiful through my herd. My problem is that I know other breeders will benefit from the use of some of my mares with their existing lines and by hoarding these horses I am playing a part that isn't beneficial to the future of the American Quarter Horse on ER.
So now that I have established two solid reasons for culling down my herd, the really tough part is deciding who goes and who stays. I am waiting to make any big decisions until the foaling season. Once the culling has been done, I will be in a position to rebuild. That also leaves two very important decisions to make. Do I incorporate the use of local stock (as that is exactly what I did when I started breeding) or do I invest in Performance Customs? I am iffy on Local Stock as each one brings tremendous strengths and tremendous weaknesses. I have worked incredibly hard to eliminate weakness and have created it, so using Local Stock does put me in a position to incorporate new lines and add exciting genetic possibilities to my future generations, but am I brave enough to try it again? The other possibility of using Performance Customs I find much more appealing, however, like the Local Stock, it can be a bit of a gamble.
I am at a cross roads in this decision and it's a choice that will not be made lightly. I am very fond of each of my horses and I know that despite what the foaling season brings, I will lose sleep trying to make the right choices for what is best for my herd and my future.
Breeding and Training the performance horse. Focus on breeding the American Quarter Horse and the Appendix Quarter Horse.
Well I have two Custom credits (should you choose to go the Performance Custom route) and six local stock credits that I'm sure we can work out a deal for. It is always hard to figure out who goes and who stays, but with so many great QH breeders around I'm sure you could reserve a brood or straws as part of the deal.
ReplyDeleteI am absolutely open to anything you might want to work out. Just let me know if we have to take care of it on the commons or how we go about doing that. I did go ahead and purchase a few customs with the thoughts that maybe they would make it easier when the time comes....and it is rapidly approaching.
DeleteWow, did you capture my feelings! So hard to know what to do now that my herd is starting to go the same direction as yours. I have worked so hard to get them where they are but I seem to have hit a plateau because I need new blood. And no matter which Paints I look at, they all trace back to mine, although because they became so popular at least they can still be fairly diluted. I have felt at a crossroads for a long time now. If you come up with the magic bullet, let me know.
ReplyDeleteI think the only magic bullet here H, is to bite the bullet. I am currently going through everyone and making notes, ticking off my list. As the babies are born, I will start moving stock to the sale barn and keeping my fingers crossed that they are able to keep contributing to ER in their new homes. This one's gonna hurt no lie!!
DeleteWell, we all know how it is around ColorBlind. Oh Shiny! is often the order of the day. Our plan to cull turned into nearly 40 extra horses before foaling season even hit. However, roughly 1/3 of those horses are on the showstring, which is keeping the farm comfortable each day.
ReplyDeleteYou're very right, the only magic bullet IS to bite the bullet. I will be putting stock up for sale soon as well, since we've already mapped out our plan for the paints, AQH, and just about every other breed here at the farm all the way down to the Exmoors.
I feel Hayden's pain, because I have to watch lines as well with the paints, which is what led to my herd of local wild stock. When in doubt I cross it out. It's that simple. At this stage we are assessing show scores, overall reproduction of quality, and overall build. That cold, calculating paperwork is much easier than looking directly at the horse and being lulled back in with those warm eyes.
Tell me about it! I need to make an investment into some local stock as well. I just worry about them because their strengths rarely rival their weaknesses. But, I have made a mess crossing and recrossing, then crossing again a generation or two down the line. It's like Hayden said, we have dumbed them down and what is shocking to see is, you can see the slow and stupid plague spread like wildfire across ER. Everything I have done to this point has played a part in the decay of winning lines universally. It's amazing watching those kinds of dynamics unfold in front of us.
DeleteI will tell you who has this figured out. It's the Thoroughbred folks. When I got started, a lot of TB's had minimal intelligence, very little strength, and sometimes little stamina to match. They had incredible speed, but couldn't go the distance or learn quickly. I don't know if you follow Three Chimneys Farm or not, but those folks along with Valley Top, and Red Rose have really upped their horse's games. I am seeing stronger, smarter, and faster Thoroughbreds with flawless conformation and temperaments. I even own a few right now. Not only that, but because they have the advantage of being a heavily populated breed, it's very easy to find new blood that is on par with the old blood and continue forward in a new direction. Occasionally you will have horses that everyone has in their lines like Banned, Spark of Confidence, or Playboyy, but for the most part, these breeders have done a phenomenal job of incorporating local stock and building on what they have worked so hard for. Again, the astounding TB population makes that a whole lot easier.
In fact, that puts me onto a new train of thought. In RL I am considering breeding my Smart Chic Olena mare to Whizkey N Diamonds. She has to go onto a waiting list and wait for a breeding year where her number will come up as this horse stands to a select number of mares each year. Each mare has to be approved before she can go onto the waiting list. Now, the waiting list might be a bit impractical, but I am now beginning to consider have a maximum number of mares bred per season per stallion. Up until now I just got really excited when a bunch of people put a bunch of Sage, Tie, or Hinder babies on the ground. NOW, I am paying the price for that excitement as every single horse I look at on the market goes back to one or more of those horses rendering the horse for sale either useless in my program or another victim of inbreeding, whichever I choose. What do you think?
I definitely understand the regression and it makes perfect sense to me, as the same thing has happened in real life with bloodlines. Look at Poco Lena. In the beginning, that line was worth its weight in gold. Within three years the line was nearly over bred. After six or seven years it was rendered basically worthless due to the number of mares bred. The same can be said for many of the well-known performance lines from a decade ago. I can find Zippo Pine Bar in the pedigree of half the quarter horses and paints I look at these days, which is sad, because he really was a great horse.
DeleteThose horses still produced some great offspring, but the value and versatility of the line dwindled over time. Now breeders have to fight to fight truly great outcrosses in order to save the value and ability of their offspring.
In the game, we have a wide variety of options for improving upon a heavily line bred breed. Local stock (while they do have their weaknesses) or also a good way to knock down the COI, which is a strong factor in improvement in my view. The COI is usually a really good check point when trying to figure out where a specific build trait has gone. For example, look at some of the horses you are frowning at right now. Most likely have a COI of 5% or higher.
Their show scores also likely dwindle after the Intermediate division has been reached, possibly stretching into Advanced if they are lucky. I've found that high COI (I consider anything over 4-5% high) truly does show up in the sustainability of scores over time.
Those horses could still produce some outstanding offspring, but they will need to be outcrossed to either foreign bred stock, custom stock, or local wild stock in order to bring down the COI and push forward in the ring. Limiting breeding to stallions is a great way to push not only yourself to look deeper into each cross, but also a way to kind of "force feed" others to do the same, because if you aren't offering more than "X" number of straws to the public, they have to look elsewhere when those straws are gone. In the end, the breed will move forward as a whole, because everyone will be looking more into outcrossing rather than mass-producing related foals.