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Introduction to Pedigree Assignment and Information for Building a Good Breeding Program. This information is from my own experience, observations and from articles by Kim Bjorgo and Daralyn Wallace. I have been breeding horses since 1997. I have come across several methods for building your breeding farm. I have seen pedigrees that I love and pedigrees that I hate. I have asked questions and answered questions. This article should answer most of them. If not, email me. "Breeding" Model Horses: Defined Obviously you can't breed 2 non-living models and come up with a third, no matter how much it SEEMS like they multiply! A more accurate term is Pedigree Assignment or PA. All you are really doing is taking a model and assigning it an ID & parents. Why? It's fun, and it adds an air of realism to the hobby. We can choose parents for our stallion, stand him for stud and watch him "produce" foals. It's fun to brag about your stud who is winning in the show ring or throwing foals who are winning. First, take a good look at your foal First, get your "foal" and have a good look at him. Whatever the breed there are certain lines that are known for producing certain traits. You will need to decide which bloodline produces the traits your model has. Second you will need parents that can produce the color or pattern of your foal. Sources for this type of research include model s/d lists, magazines, books about the breed(s), a breed's stud books, a breed association's rulebook or website, and individual breeders or their websites. Colors The second thing to consider is your foal's color. What color of parents do you need? Check out my color page for more information here. A foal or not? The next choice you have to make is how old your "foal." When starting a breeding program it is important to have some older horses that can be parents of your younger horses. A good age for your foundation models is 10-15 years old. Then, you can have some 5-8 year olds for your future parents, and maybe a yearling or two. Just because you pedigreed the horse this year doesn't mean it has to be a newborn. If you decide your *foal* will be about 9 years old, then you will need parents that are at least 3 to 4 years older. Model Bred or Foundation Bred? What's the difference? Well, as the name suggests, model bred means that both of a horse's parents are models. Foundation bred then means that both of a horse's parents are real. My goal is to produce generations of model bred horses that trace back to good foundation horses. Many of my older horses are foundation bred and many of my younger horses are their foals and grandfoals. Remember - our goal is to have about 4 generations of winning models that trace back to real horses. Fictitious Pedigrees I really do not like to receive a pedigree with several random real horse's names that is not their real pedigree. One of my pedigrees has famous real horse's names on it but if you look up the real horse's pedigrees from AQHA they are just thrown together out of the blue. I am looking for a suitable pedigree for him to replace this one. It is always up to the breeder to decide how they want their models pedigreed. You should always state if a pedigree is fictitious. Infinite Foals? For the purpose of realism, mares can still only have one foal per year with the occasional VERY rare set of twins. Embryo transplant would not result in unlimited foals from a given mare. I realize that breeding non-living "toys" is stretching it already but we should stick to normal rules. Inbreeding vs Linebreeding This is always a subject of controversy and misunderstandings. Generally speaking, a half brother bred to half sister in one generation never really hurt anything. Arabian breeders are professionals at linebreeding with their multiple crosses to one famous ancestor. I personally think that a lot of inbreeding went into a lot of breed's foundation horses, so I try to stay away from it with my foundation bred models. Every breeder follows his or her own strict patterns of linebreeding/inbreeding to produce the best foals. Stallions Have you noticed the huge number of stallions in our hobby? I think it is because "What fun is a winning gelding ? he won't produce winning foals" but in real life a breeder would keep one or two stallions of the breed. Another reason is because we have to choose parents that can produce certain, pre-determined colors - in real life you get what you get. Many hobbyists keep about the same to 2/3 the number of stallions to the number of mares. I have about one QH stallion per QH mare. I am slowly upping the numbers of mares and not "creating" any more stallions. You want to have enough color variety but remember that one stallion per breed will suffice. Details Details Details You must keep thorough records especially of mare's production to make sure she doesn't end up with several foals one year and none for the next two years. You should also reserve a year or two for your own breeding program. I reserve a year when my mare is 12 to 15 years old, so that way when she gets on 22-24 and stops having foals she can be "reincarnated" into her own baby at a reasonable age. Example: Here is an example for choosing model parents for the following foal: Buster - 1996 palomino QH gelding Possible Sires: Grey Badger's Back - 1979 grey foundation bred, Two Eyed Driftwood - 1984 dun BOFC Hall of Fame & foundation bred, Miller - 1990 chestnut model bred, Wrangler - 1993 buckskin Champion, model bred, Possible Dams: Steady On - 1982 grey foundation bred, Mist of the Morning - 1986 cremello model bred, Blue Satin - 1989 sorrel model bred, Hitimahana - 1990 chestnut, Sunkist - 1991 cremello model bred, What kind of breeding are we looking for, we could go model or foundation bred. For color, there are several choices: Miller or Two Eyed Driftwood x Mist of the Morning or Sunkist, Wrangler x Blue Satin or Hitimahana, we don't have a palomino parent but either of these crosses or a couple others would do. For a gelding, I would go with Wrangler x Hitimahana. If I was breeding for a stud I might go with Two Eyed Driftwood x Mist of the Morning. Of course, other factors would come into play, like say, the year 1996 was already taken for Mist of the Morning, so I would have to make another choice. Do your research, know what you are looking for, do it a few times and you will get it! This site is built for IE5.0+ but with the exception of the home page there are no javascripts or anything that won't downgrade nicely. Best viewed with a screen resolution of 800x600. This site is hosted for free by FreeWebs.com. Get your own Free Website now!