Seeking Guidance/Advice on New Breed Creation (From Scratch)

[Bairdey]

EDIT: Here is my farm log for anyone that's interested in this.

Hello! I'm Bairdey and I'm looking to create a herd of Leopard Appaloosa Miniature's completely from scratch. (using only AC stock) However, I'm new and inexperienced with HWO and don't know the best way to go about completing this ambitious project.

I have a few specific questions that I will get to later on. But my main goal with this thread is to collect a bunch of general information and tips from older and more experienced players who've tackled similar goals in the past. What have you guys learned from the experience? Were there any surprising roadblocks or mistakes that hindered you in your goals? What should I look out for? That kind of thing.

And now,
My More Targeted Questions:
I apologize in advance if these are really common questions that get asked a lot!

Breeds Books -
"Do breed books only need to be purchased once and then I can use them on multiple horses? Or do I need to buy a book for each horse I want to be evaluated?" My worry is that this will get expensive fast. Especially since the price of books seems to increase the further from an Ancient breed it is.

indent Follow up question: "If I do need to purchase a book for each horse are there any tricks to figuring out which horses should actually be evaluated? I don't want to waste a bunch of books on horses that would never pass anyway. Is there anything about a horse that could indicate it won't, so I can skip using books on them?

Also, "Do you use the books on the parents for the breed you want their foal to be? I.E I want a West African Barb foal. Do I test both parents using the WAB breed book to evaluate how likely they are to have a WAB foal?" I'm pretty sure this is how it works but I just want a confirmation. lol

White patterning & Appaloosa -
"How does tobiano and appaloosa patterning interact with one another? Will tobiano cover spots or can the spots appear over top of it?" I'll be working with both NABs and Shetlands in order to create the Miniature horse and both of these breeds almost always have the tobiano pattern present. It's very likely that a portion of my herd will inherit this pattern. I want to know if It can interfere with Appaloosa patterning so I can be selective in my breeding to weed it out of my herd's genetics.

COI (Coefficiency of Inbreeding) -
"What's the best way to get the COI down once I reach my target breed of the Miniature Horse?" I know it's probably going to be near impossible (or at least very expensive) to keep my horses at a low COI throughout this project. However, I don't want my Miniature's to have a massive COI level. What can I do to help with this?

[BlackOak2]

Hello! I'm Bairdey and I'm looking to create a herd of Leopard Appaloosa Miniature's completely from scratch. (using only AC stock) However, I'm new and inexperienced with HWO and don't know the best way to go about completing this ambitious project.

First off... I do want to congratulate you on tackling this project. Second, I want to say, 'ambitious' may be a bit of an understatement. But I'll get into that in a little.

Your direct questions:

Breed books are one-time purchase (although you can purchase the breed books as many times as you want, you will only ever need one for any breed).

Yes, you will use the breed book you're trying to create, on the parents. The closer you get, the higher the chance. But even with perfect parents, it's still a flip of the coin.

Tobiano will cover your spots, completely. Also, graying will cover your spots too (the gray gene).

COI is best lowered by creating a grade bloodline to breed out to. However, if you create two separate lines from your bloodline, after a number of generations, you can use one bloodline to pull the other's COI downward.
To pull the COI down, utilize an outside line (preferably a stallion you can hold on a frozen account) once every third generation. You will need at least three stallions though, in revolving order. By doing this, you will pull down the COI and eventually maintain it at about 20% to 35% COI. Can it go lower? I don't know, I haven't studied long-term COI maintenance using this practice yet, another project got in the way. Mares can be used for this as well, but they have less lifespan for foals.

For the rest of your questions, you may find the studies to answer everything in extensive fashion. They can be found in my quicklinks. Here is the main one you'll want:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9416

With a little aside. If you want to create full-style leopard (above the neck) on black-based horses, you will need to find where it comes from in the AC. It took a long time to find a horse from the AC to unlock that area. If you stick to red-based horses, shouldn't be a problem for you.

Do you need more information?

[Bairdey]

Hello! I'm Bairdey and I'm looking to create a herd of Leopard Appaloosa Miniature's completely from scratch. (using only AC stock) However, I'm new and inexperienced with HWO and don't know the best way to go about completing this ambitious project.

First off... I do want to congratulate you on tackling this project. Second, I want to say, 'ambitious' may be a bit of an understatement. But I'll get into that in a little.

Your direct questions:

Breed books are one-time purchase (although you can purchase the breed books as many times as you want, you will only ever need one for any breed).

Yes, you will use the breed book you're trying to create, on the parents. The closer you get, the higher the chance. But even with perfect parents, it's still a flip of the coin.

Tobiano will cover your spots, completely. Also, graying will cover your spots too (the gray gene).

COI is best lowered by creating a grade bloodline to breed out to. However, if you create two separate lines from your bloodline, after a number of generations, you can use one bloodline to pull the other's COI downward.
To pull the COI down, utilize an outside line (preferably a stallion you can hold on a frozen account) once every third generation. You will need at least three stallions though, in revolving order. By doing this, you will pull down the COI and eventually maintain it at about 20% to 35% COI. Can it go lower? I don't know, I haven't studied long-term COI maintenance using this practice yet, another project got in the way. Mares can be used for this as well, but they have less lifespan for foals.

For the rest of your questions, you may find the studies to answer everything in extensive fashion. They can be found in my quicklinks. Here is the main one you'll want:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9416

With a little aside. If you want to create full-style leopard (above the neck) on black-based horses, you will need to find where it comes from in the AC. It took a long time to find a horse from the AC to unlock that area. If you stick to red-based horses, shouldn't be a problem for you.

Do you need more information?

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions! It will be a very long process to get to the Miniature breed but It's going to be a lot easier than what I originally wanted to do. Which was create Irish Sport Horses from scratch. Waaay more breeds involved there than with the Miniature! lol

I will keep what you said about the breed evaluations in mind. The fact that I can still end up with only a cross and not a new breed from perfect parents will definitely keep things interesting.
I ended up breeding a NAB x Forest horse colt while setting up my holding account. He didn't score too well (a 2) for the WAB evaluation but he was close to being in the ranges it wanted. He was only 1% under the type range and 5.5% over the body size range.

It's good to know that about the tobiano! I'll work on making sure it doesn't take over in my herd. I definitely don't want the spots covered! Grey shouldn't be a problem I don't think. I've only seen Arabians with it and it was pretty easy to just adopt horses without it.

That's quite disheartened to hear about the leopard pattern. I actually wanted my herd to be mostly black and bay leopards. My favourite base coat colour happens to be seal bay. I'll have to look at that study and see what others have done to get leopard on their blacks! And maybe reevaluate my breeding goals to let more chestnuts in my herd...

Oh, and thank you for the COI advice! I'll try and outbreed every 3 generations or so like you said. ! I do have one question though: What is a grade bloodline? I'm not familiar with the term.

[Hidalgo]

It's good to know that about the tobiano! I'll work on making sure it doesn't take over in my herd. I definitely don't want the spots covered! Grey shouldn't be a problem I don't think. I've only seen Arabians with it and it was pretty easy to just adopt horses without it.

I don't have a lot to add, except that if you check the AC often you can find NABs without tobiano (although it may take some time and patience). Also an easy way to find NAB studs without tobiano is to search NABs on the stud page and then go to the oldest pages, and there you will find tons of studs from before tobiano was added to the game. Hope that helps, and good luck on your project

ETA same goes for Shetlands. You can find ones with LP and no tobiano with time. Also I've found I'm more likely to find variety in the AC stock early in the morning and late in the evening.

[BlackOak2]

Oh, and thank you for the COI advice! I'll try and outbreed every 3 generations or so like you said. ! I do have one question though: What is a grade bloodline? I'm not familiar with the term.

Another little sidenote, in addition to what Hidalgo offered, is that the gender of the AC is random. So if you really like a particular horse for look or body 'eye' (the eyeball of conformation), but don't want the gender, go through loading again. As long as nobody adopts that horse, it'll come back around and will be 50/50 for switching genders. They also turn over, so if a horse doesn't get adopted in a certain amount of time, it'll be removed and replaced. Memory serves it's 24-hours, but I could be wrong with that.

A grade horse is a mutt horse. It has four or more different breeds mixed in. So if you have two separate crosses, for example, an arabiab x forest horse and you cross it to a thoroughbred x caspian, you'll pop a grade breed. Grade breeds, when crossing into a purebred will give you a 50% breed (of your purebred). Keep breeding that 50% breed back to purebreds and you'll eventually return to purebred status. Takes about 4 generations. Longer for mixes and half x half, but for the most part, you can eventually get back to purebred with the right breeding.

I was lucky enough to produce the first black-based extension up the neck for the community. So, if you go back in [probably any] black-based, patterned bloodline, you'll eventually come back to my stallion:




The only other bloodline that's not directly related to him (that I've been informed about) is my own leopard stock (project on freeze currently). And they're still related to him but through a brother.

If you want to, or otherwise break down and decide to breed to an already established line for that black-based, full leopard... there are a couple breeders out there that offer breeding to black stock. It isn't too cheap, but it is still affordable and has a guarantee of pattern passage. So there are ways.

And yes, those breeders do also harken back to my stud as well. Or, at least, they did when those lines were established. Like I said, I haven't heard or seen of another bloodline being produced with that extension beyond the neck from scratch.

[Bairdey]

It's good to know that about the tobiano! I'll work on making sure it doesn't take over in my herd. I definitely don't want the spots covered! Grey shouldn't be a problem I don't think. I've only seen Arabians with it and it was pretty easy to just adopt horses without it.

I don't have a lot to add, except that if you check the AC often you can find NABs without tobiano (although it may take some time and patience). Also an easy way to find NAB studs without tobiano is to search NABs on the stud page and then go to the oldest pages, and there you will find tons of studs from before tobiano was added to the game. Hope that helps, and good luck on your project

ETA same goes for Shetlands. You can find ones with LP and no tobiano with time. Also I've found I'm more likely to find variety in the AC stock early in the morning and late in the evening.

Thank you for the AC advice! I currently have all the horses I need at this stage already accounted for but I'll keep your advice in mind for when I need to get more.

Another little sidenote, in addition to what Hidalgo offered, is that the gender of the AC is random. So if you really like a particular horse for look or body 'eye' (the eyeball of conformation), but don't want the gender, go through loading again. As long as nobody adopts that horse, it'll come back around and will be 50/50 for switching genders. They also turn over, so if a horse doesn't get adopted in a certain amount of time, it'll be removed and replaced. Memory serves it's 24-hours, but I could be wrong with that.

A grade horse is a mutt horse. It has four or more different breeds mixed in. So if you have two separate crosses, for example, an arabiab x forest horse and you cross it to a thoroughbred x caspian, you'll pop a grade breed. Grade breeds, when crossing into a purebred will give you a 50% breed (of your purebred). Keep breeding that 50% breed back to purebreds and you'll eventually return to purebred status. Takes about 4 generations. Longer for mixes and half x half, but for the most part, you can eventually get back to purebred with the right breeding.

I was lucky enough to produce the first black-based extension up the neck for the community. So, if you go back in [probably any] black-based, patterned bloodline, you'll eventually come back to my stallion:




The only other bloodline that's not directly related to him (that I've been informed about) is my own leopard stock (project on freeze currently). And they're still related to him but through a brother.

If you want to, or otherwise break down and decide to breed to an already established line for that black-based, full leopard... there are a couple breeders out there that offer breeding to black stock. It isn't too cheap, but it is still affordable and has a guarantee of pattern passage. So there are ways.

And yes, those breeders do also harken back to my stud as well. Or, at least, they did when those lines were established. Like I said, I haven't heard or seen of another bloodline being produced with that extension beyond the neck from scratch.

I didn't know they could switch genders, that's very helpful!

Making a grade horse definitely seems the way to go then to lower COI! I'll try and make a few and put them on my side account for future use.

Your stallion is gorgeous! You're so lucky to have gotten the first leopard agouti.
Right now I'm still pretty firm about doing everything from scratch and keeping to my own lines but who knows I might break down someday lol.

Or maybe I'll stick with it and manage to create a black leopard with white coverage up to the face and neck from scratch!

[BlackOak2]

Or maybe I'll stick with it and manage to create a black leopard with white coverage up to the face and neck from scratch!

There's hints all over. Especially his... ehem... AC grandfather.

But if you need some more direct help with the from scratch leopards, just let us (the community) know and we'll try to set you straight.

Good luck!

[Bairdey]

Or maybe I'll stick with it and manage to create a black leopard with white coverage up to the face and neck from scratch!

There's hints all over. Especially his... ehem... AC grandfather.

But if you need some more direct help with the from scratch leopards, just let us (the community) know and we'll try to set you straight.

Good luck!

Ah, his AC Grandfather, I see him there.
I'll keep that hint in mind for what breeds I'll need to cross to in order get the genes I want.
It's looking like my Mini's are going to have blood from all the different AC breeds now.

[BlackOak2]

There's hints all over. Especially his... ehem... AC grandfather.

But if you need some more direct help with the from scratch leopards, just let us (the community) know and we'll try to set you straight.

Good luck!

Ah, his AC Grandfather, I see him there.
I'll keep that hint in mind for what breeds I'll need to cross to in order get the genes I want.
It's looking like my Mini's are going to have blood from all the different AC breeds now.

I think you can get away with all... but two, but my memory is quite rusty on the process. For the leopard-breeding, you'll want to ensure you age out and introduce new AC blood at a slightly fair rate, because every horse has a different set of lp genes, within their breed standards. So if one isn't giving you what you think it should, cull that horse and possibly also those foals and try another one. Or... just retire that parent, keep the foals and breed into the rest of the stock for any hidden genes they might be carrying!