Breeding Your Horses

Articles on how to use various breeding methods: in-house, pasture, and using the Advanced Breeding Lab. More on basic color genetics, punnett squares, crossing two horses (what to look for beyond reading individual genetic testing results), warning about lethal genes. What to breed for, tips on deciding on breeding goals? Breeding ability, what it means to breed horses of equal ability. Links to advanced topics of boosting, uneven vs. even breeding, and bootstrapping. Discuss what the Breeders Clubs are, and what qualifications are required to be eligible for the leaderboard categories. Remember that this content is in the Show Herd article, so focus on the show-related aspects of the leaderboards (breeding-related leaderboard content should in the Breeding Your Horses article). Touch on how to search for horses that belong to a given club. Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.

• Breeding 101: The Basics
• Breeding Season
• Live Cover Breeding
• Pasture Breeding
• The Advanced Breeding Lab
• Using Straws
• Using Eggs & Embryos
• Generations And Lined Breeding
• How to Decide Which Horses to Breed
• Bootstrapping: The Quickest Way to Build a Show Herd
• Height & Bone: What Happens If I Cross A Riding Pony With A Draft?
• Posting Your Horses for Stud or Brood

Breeding 101: The Basics

• Important information about geldings and spayed mares!
• While they may not be able to procreate, spayed mares and geldings are the backbone of your program! As soon as they are spayed or gelded they begin to earn extra training points with every training session. This gives them the potential to be better show horses, so they earn more show points. Recognize their value and don't just toss your spayed and gelded foals away. Running out of space? Use that showing bonus to buy more barn space for them. While your breeding herd may be more fun, your showing herd is how you maintain your breeding program!
• The Basics
• Mares cannot be bred before age 4 or after age 20
  • Horses live to be a minimum 17 years old.
• Stallion cannot be bred before age 3 or after age 20
  • Horses live to be a minimum 17 years old
• Mares can only produce one foal a year unless their eggs are harvested and surrogate mares are used to produce multiple foals.
  • Members with a Premuim upgrade can harvest eggs from a mare in one of two ways
    • a single egg every 5 days during the regular breeding season
    • mass egg flush, which will produce anywhere from 8 to 14 eggs, and can only be done once per breeding season, after that point the mare will not be able to have another foal until the next breeding season.
• Stallions can produce 50 foals via live cover in a single season.
  • There is no maximum on the number of foals stallions can produce via frozen semen/straws.
  • Semen can be saved as frozen ‘straws’ which can be used at a later date, or sold to other players
    • You can set an expiration date on straws, or leave the date open to keep the straw viable indefinitely.
    • Even after a stallion is deceased any straws previously collected will remain viable indefinitely unless an expiration date has been set
• Inbreeding and linebreeding (breeding parents to offspring, or siblings to each other, etc.) have no consequences on Hunt And Jump.
• When breeding via embryo transfer, the surrogate mare used has NO influence on the color or ability of the resulting foal.

Breeding Season

When breeding season starts and ends. What happens when it ends? Foals need to be removed from pasture. Horses age up at the end of the year. What you can still do outside of breeding season. When breeding will open for you, depending on upgrade/purchases. When pastures will open for you.

(Parts of this can be reused in the Game Time vs Real Time subsection in Learning Your Way, or link to here from there.)

Live Cover Breeding

Breeding your horses

To breed two horses you own, open either the mare's or the stallion's page. Mares need to be 4 years old and Stallions need to be 3 (Horses age 1 year at the end of the month no matter when they were created in the month). Go to the Control Panel tab and select the "In-house Breeding" button.

Go to the section that says Horse Breeding (usually the topmost option) and click the drop-down box to select the horse to which you would like to breed and then enter a name for your foal. Names can be changed very easily later, so don't worry about being stuck with something you don't like. If you can't think of a name right now, just enter a hashtag (#) and the horse's name will simply be its unique ID number. If the name you chose isn't available, the game will not create the foal and will instead give you a notification that the name "is already in use, please choose a unique name." (Using the hashtag alone or as part of your chosen name will prevent this error from occurring.)

Since this particular account currently has a premium upgrade, there are additional breeding options available. Basic upgrade accounts may collect and use straws; only premium upgrades have access to egg and embryo breeding.

You will be charged 1,000 HBs for vet bills. You will get a notice showing you an image of your new foal, and the foal will be placed in your Primary Barn.  

Since Hunt And Jump uses very realistic genetics there is a chance your foal may not survive based on the extent of the white patterns it might have.  This is usually not a problem with Foundation (newly created) horses, but you should be aware that it could happen.  

There is also a slight chance your mare could have twins!  The chances are slim, but don't be surprised if you get 2 for the price of 1!

(Screenshot needed)

Inbreeding and linebreeding (breeding parents to offspring, siblings to each other, etc.) have no consequences on Hunt And Jump.

Other In-house Breeding Options

There are three options available when you click on In-house Breeding: horse breeding (live cover), using a straw, and implanting an embryo. In this tutorial we are only discussing live cover breeding. The other options are explained in the Advanced Breeding Lab (link).

Breeding Your Horse to a Publicly Listed Stud or Broodmare

You aren't limited to breeding only your own horses. You can also live cover one of your horses to a stallion or mare placed for public stud or brood by another player.

• How do I find horses for breeding?
• On the navigation bar scroll down to "Community". From the drop-down menu select "Search Horses" and click "For Breeding" in the status box. On the search page you can search for horses by patterns, color, age, bone density, era, etc.  
• This search is best done later in the month, as all horses listed for public breeding are removed at monthly rollover.
• If you are on a budget, you can go to the search, select "For Breeding" and in the box that says "Basic Sort" click the drop-down arrow to see a list of options.  Select the "Breeding Price" option, and click the "Search Horses" button at the bottom of the Search page.
  
• Remember that the breeding price does NOT include the 1000 HBs vet bill for the breeding, so you will need to take that into consideration when budgeting.  
• Once you have used the search to find a horse you like, click on the horse's name to go to the horse's main page.  Scroll down past the Somatic Tattoos section and you will find the "Breed to This Horse for XXXX HBs" button.  Once you click that just follow the same procedure up above for breeding.  The foal will appear in your Primary barn when the breeding is complete.  

Why Can't I Breed to This Horse?

First check the horse's age.

• Mares cannot be bred before age 4 or after age 20
• Stallions cannot be bred before age 3 or after age 20

Check how many times the horse has been bred this season.

• Stallions can only sire fifty foals via live cover in a single season.  They can breed a nearly unlimited number of foals using artificial insemination or embryo transfer, but those methods require extra HBs and/or an upgrade to access.
• Mares can produce only one foal per breeding season when using live cover or artificial insemination. They can have several more foals per season by using flushed eggs and embryo implantation, but you need a premium upgrade to use the flush eggs feature.  

Make sure the mare is not in a pasture.

You can use the pasture to breed your mare to a stallion you own, but both the mare and the stallion must be in the same pasture.  If you are breeding to an outside stallion, you will need to move the mare to a barn.  Once she is bred you can move her back to the pasture, but you must do it before the nightly rollover (approximately midnight Eastern Standard Time, aka the 'Cinderella Effect').  If you don't move the mare back to the pasture, she will lose her pasture bonus for the month and the 'days in pasture' count will reset to 0. Days in pasture will start accumulating again as soon as she does move back into a pasture.

Double check that breeding season is open

Breeding season ends at rollover (approximately midnight Eastern Standard Time) on the 27th day of each month. Once the clock rolls over to the 28th day of the month breeding season is over.  There will be a big notice on your main stable page telling you that breeding season is over.  When breeding season ends all horses who were available to breed are no longer listed.  

Breeding season reopens on the 3rd of the month for free accounts.  Upgraded accounts can breed on the 2nd of the month. 

Pastures open for breeding on the 7th day of the month unless you paid real life cash for a feature in the previous month.  For example, if you purchased a pasture with real money in July then your pastures will allow you to breed on August 5th. This purchase does not carry over to September or any future month unless a new purchase with real money (via PayPal) is made.

Also see article about pasture breeding and closed/licensed genes. 

Placing Your Horses Up for Public Breeding

If you have a mare or a stallion that you would like to share with the community for breeding, but don't want to sell, you can set a price for other players to pay to breed their horse to yours.  

Pasture Breeding

Discuss the pros and cons of using pastures to breed. Discuss auto-breeding.

Why can't I breed my pasture horses?

• • Double check the following possibilities
    • Pastures open on the 5th day of the month if you spent real money on the game in the past month, and on the 7th if you did not.
    • Are all of the mares over 3 years old, and younger than 20?
      Is your stallion over 2 years old, and younger than 20?
    • Have the mares already been bred (check live cover and/or embryo transfer)?
    • Is breeding season still open? Breeding season ends on the 28th of each month

Pastures

• • Pastures allow you to breed large numbers of horses at one time at reduced costs, and with special bonuses.
    • Pasture breeding costs 500 HBs per mare
    • Pastures which hold 100 mares can also hold up to 3 stallions
      • During breeding season those 3 stallions will randomly breed the available mares.
    • Horse must be older than 2 years to go into the pasture
    • Mares 20 years old and over will stay in the pasture until you remove them, but will not breed
    • Horses in pasture do not show
      • Their total show points will still count towards your daily showing bonus, but they will not earn new points.
    • On the 14th of each month pastures will automatically breed as long as there are both stallions and mares in that pasture
    • On the 28th of the month, all foals remaining in the pasture will be sold back to the game and you will receive 1000 HBs for each foal
  • You can move your mares and stallions into the pasture to breed them at the reduced cost, then pull them back out into the barns to show, or you can leave your mares in the pasture all season to receive additional bonuses.
    • Pasture bonuses accrue to mares only
    • Pasture bonuses affect the foals breeding quality only, not showing/training ability
    • The full pasture bonus is acquired at 30 + days in the pasture.
      • While the full pasture bonus takes 30 days to accumulate, some people choose to accept less than the full bonus and breed pastured mares earlier than 30 days.
    • You can move a mare from pasture to pasture with no change in the pasture bonus.  You can move a mare to a barn for a short period of time without losing the pasture bonus.  The mare has to be back in the pasture by the next nightly rollover (The Cinderella Effect).  All times are calculated using Eastern Standard Time (USA).  If the mare remains out of the pasture after that roll over, their daily pasture bonus will reset to 0 and start all over when they are returned to the pasture.  
  • Each player starts with one pasture. Additional pastures may be purchased for real money at the Upgrades and Extras link.

The Advanced Breeding Lab

Using advanced breeding facilities, including straws, eggs, and embryos. Upgrades are required to use eggs and embryos.

Using Straws

No upgrade required, How to Pull Straws, How to Use Straws, Obtaining Straws from Other Players. Explain expiration dates.  Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.  

Using Eggs & Embryos

Upgrade required, Pulling & Flushing Eggs, Embryo Creation and Implantation, Obtaining Eggs/Embryos from other players. Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.

Will the mare I use to implant an embryo have any effect on the foal?

• • No. The mare used (aka the surrogate mare) will not affect the foal in any way.

Generations And Lined Breeding

Discuss the difference between foundations and lined horses, and even vs uneven breeding (no game effect from this). Give some detail on G2/G3/G+ horses. 

Pros and Cons of even breeding, uneven breeding, or bootstrapping (i.e. Pros: good indicator of quality increase with BA/SBA, can buy and introduce new colors at base level, flexibility with GMTing the foundations. Cons: Culling of horses that aren't good enough quality despite everything else (color, bone, etc.), Slow going compared to bootstrapping, matching in later gens,)

https://wiki.huntandjump.com/link/15#bkmrk-cons%3A-culling-of-hor

Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.

How to Decide Which Horses to Breed

Discuss: Understanding genetics and inheritance, lethal genes (why did my foal not survive), breeding quality basics - link this to the Improving Your Bloodlines content. Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.

What Should I Breed For?

• • Breeding is completely up to you! Type, color, height, paper level, PT scores; you decide what is important to you. Since the general goal of breeding is to produce offspring that is better than it’s parents we put a very strong emphasis on testing horses before breeding them.
    • There are three different body types of horses on Hunt And Jump:
      • LIGHT; Elegant riding horses and ponies similar to Anglo-Arabians, Welsh ponies, or Akal-Teke horses.
        • Horses in this category are referred to as Riding Horses (RH) or Riding ponies
        • 
      • MEDIUM; Horses with a bit more bone and body mass, similar to Warmbloods, Hunter type Quarter Horses, or Sport ponies.
        • Horses in this category are referred to as Warmbloods (WB) or Sport Ponies
        • 
      • HEAVY; Draft horses. Still refined, but more performance oriented than typical Draft horses.
        • Horses in this category are referred to as Drafts, and the ponies are called Cobs.
          • 
  • Cross breeding Riding Horses, Warmbloods, Drafts, ponies, etc. can result in a variety of body types.
    • Each horse has a Bone Density reading as part of their information. There is a range of bone density within each type and it is possible to steadily breed up from Light to Heavy through selective breeding.
      • Light horses/Riding Horses have bone size ranging from .5 inches to 1.49 inches
      • Warmbloods have bone size ranging from 1.5 inches to 2.49 inches
      • Draft horses have bone size ranging from 2.5 inches to 3.5 inches
    • There are no adverse effects to cross breeding body types
  • Breeding for paper levels can be challenging and requires a good understanding of breeding ability. (Breeding *Star papered stallion to *Gold papered mare will not always create a *Star/*Gold offspring. In fact, it could produce a much lower papered C offspring!)
    • This is why testing and selective breeding is so important. (See Paper, Letter & Color ranking)
    • Colts, especially, should always be at least as good as their sire - though superior to sire is better. You can, and should, test colts against their sires if at all possible!
  • When breeding for color it is important to know how the different genes work with one another.
    • Some color combinations can result in a foal that does not survive at birth (aka lethal white).
    • Know if your horse is heterozygous or homozygous for the trait you wish to produce.
    • Some traits CANNOT be added to foals in the gene modification lab

Does inbreeding or linebreeding (breeding parents to offspring, or siblings to each other, etc.) have any consequences on Hunt and Jump.

• • No. There are no consequences for inbreeding or linebreeding in the game.

Bootstrapping: The Quickest Way to Build a Show Herd

• Definition: What is bootstrapping?
• How to get started: tips for finding a stud, saving space by leaving mares in pasture, etc.
• Pros and cons of bootstrapping
  • Colors, fun to do!
  • Higher PTs quicker for better show ponies
  • Takes up space that said show ponies can have
  • Difficult to determine quality if playing on a free account
  • Playing the long game with building show herd (^^ except that this seems to directly contradict the title ^^)

Remember to link to other articles/subsections as needed.

Height & Bone: What Happens If I Cross A Riding Pony With A Draft?

About the heights and bone weights of horses, what happens if you cross them, how these traits are inherited in the game, what difference they make. Unlike real life, it's no problem to breed a tiny pony mare to a huge draft stallion. How to pick which you want to breed? Does it matter? Breeder clubs for each. Briefly discuss height regulator and "collectible" ponies with link to dedicated page on the gene and what it means for a horse to be "collectible."

https://wiki.huntandjump.com/link/81#bkmrk-briefly-about-height

Posting Your Horses for Stud or Brood

Can I put conditions or restrictions on my publicly listed breeding horses?

• Horses posted for public breeding may NOT have any rules or restrictions on who may use them, or which horses may be bred to them, or what can or should be done with the foals that result from that breeding.
• Horses advertised in Public chat rooms (or rooms with more than 5 members) may not have any rules or restrictions placed on breeding, but horses in PRIVATE chat rooms may.
• Statements in the owners notes of a horse standing for public breeding that indicate conditions or restrictions are not allowed.
  • Restrictions in a horses owner notes are allowed AS LONG AS THE HORSE IS NOT STANDING FOR PUBLIC BREEDING OR SALE.

Why Can't I Put This Stallion/Mare Up For Public Breeding?

Check for the following situations;

• Is this horse old enough to breed
• If your horse is a mare, any of the following situations could cause her to be done breeding for the season:
  • Has she already produced a foal of her own this year (check her Foals This Year count)
  • Has she undergone a mass egg flush? (check her standing in the Advanced Breeding Lab, at the Egg collection link)
  • Did a previous breeding this season involve a lethal combination of genes resulting in a foal that did not survive? (There is no record of deceased foals)
  • Are you SURE you didn’t sell the foal back to the game? (It happens a lot!)
  • If you are using live cover, has the stallion had more than 50 live cover foals this season?
• Breeding horses with Limited Edition and Fantasy genes (which are bought with real life money) is not allowed on the public market. These genes can only be shared between other owners of that particular gene. (For example: If you have a blue Axiom stallion you can only sell straws and obtain eggs from others who own blue Axiom mares. Breeding Red Axiom horses requires that both parties own Red Axiom horses)
  • There are special chat rooms available for these sales/breedings.