Eval Genetics

[Aela]

I would love a little bit of insight on HWO genetics..

I have been breeding Welsh Mountains Ponies with the goal of increasing body size and type. My goal is Welsh Cobs, and since the Norfolk Trotter x Spanish Barb cross I have saved has a body size and type much lower than the requirement for Cobs, I wanted to get my Welsh Mountains x Hackneys as close to 100/100 (body size/pony type) as possible before I went for the final cross.

So I have spent a lot of time, first with the Welsh Mountains and now with Welsh Mountains x Hackneys
Observation 1 is that the stallions in my programme tend to rate higher in both size and type than the mares. Even though they are half or full siblings, colts tend to come out stockier than the fillies. Is that purely based on sex? Something genetic I have bred into my (pretty inbred) programme? Or coincidental?

And then there's observation 2, because something pretty weird happened when I started crossbreeding WMPs and HCKs. Here are my first two crosses
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1730471 = Mare, 50/58
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1730424 = Stallion, 57/61

I was a bit dissatisfied with these low scores, because my WMPs are around the 100/90 mark. But, then I breed the above and got this guy:
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1730821 = Stallion 97/92

I also paired another, very similar mare with the same stallion
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1730819 = Mare, 84/51

How does a 50/58 x 57/61 pop out a 97/92? Is this coincidental too? Or did the sire or dam possibly carry something to boost body size and type that only works recessively (if that's a word). And again I see a difference between stallions and mares. This time it's obviously based on very few horses, but it's there nonetheless.

I'm sorry if these are just the ramblings of a tired madwoman surrounded by screaming children for way too many hours of the day - but I just thought I'd ask if anyone has had similar experiences/actually know something on the subject! :)

[BlackOak2]

...

Right now I'm working on a mini-project for heavy, pony arabians. And from my experiences, I think the problems you're coming up against is because those are the genes you have in your herd. I can't say much about why your colts turn out heavier than your mares however, I think it's just coincidental, but only because I haven't experienced it with my own program, myself.
I get a good mix of random expressions, but I've been keeping my COI as low as I can, not because I want to keep it low, but because I'm breeding back to pure AC arabs to test out how sticky the heavy genes are becoming. Arabians are notorious for throwing super light foals, relatively regardless of what they're paired with. So in order to get a pure arabian to throw heavy stock, it's not just important to have a heavy-type, pure arabian, but to have that arabian carry enough genes that code for heavy stock.

My most successful case right now is this mare (48.15/59):
http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1702269
Who's father is a pure AC stock arab and successfully threw a medium-weight arabian foal when crossed back to the same AC sire (it just happened to be the same sire).
Her dame is 85.05/98
Her AC sire is 15.5/89 H

And she has thrown foals with scores of (the unnamed ones were ones I chose not to keep):
unnamed - 47.7/52
Prince Of Storms - 55.5/53
unnamed - 50/78 H
Painstaking Gains - 81/99
unnamed - 58/57
Snowy Thunder - 92/89
unnamed - 85.05/100
unnamed - 95.5/100

The first two breedings were from that AC sire.

It's taken quite a few generations to get to this point however, but without new genes, there may be a limit to how far certain genes can be pushed. Plus it is important to choose the right genes to keep. You know all this already, I'm sure.
Personally, I think you may need some new blood with some new genes. I only say so much, because on another project, that's where I am right now, stuck with genes that just won't go any further. For that project, I'm creating another line and will be infusing that line into the original when I'm satisfied with what I'm getting.

Certain mares and stallions you have will produce more successfully than others in the areas you want to improve. Although I've done a lot of work on making a heavy arab line, it's still a lot of guesswork for myself as well. I've found that the best scored horses sometimes only seem to throw stock that's lighter than them. Then I have stock that seem to favor what their partner has, I don't really understand that and what genes they might have... Then my line will produce a foal that shows a capacity for throwing heavier stock then even itself. These last foals are starting to appear more often, which tells me that the heavy genes I'm looking for are beginning to stick and overcome the pure arab lightweight genes.

I don't know if this was helpful to you or not.

[Aela]

...

Thanks, very helpful!

It really is just a lot of speculation and guesswork!

I would love to add new blood to my herd and do some more testing, but since the Welsh Mountains/Cobs are just two steps towards Jutlands in my original project, which does not allow any outside blood except from AC horses owned by me, it would be too much for me to handle. I already have two large breeding projects going on, and I don't think I have enough time and brain capacity for a third :)

I might consider saving some Welsh Mountains though and play around with them once I finish the others. The idea of genetic limits is very interesting.

[BlackOak2]

Thanks, very helpful!

It really is just a lot of speculation and guesswork!

I would love to add new blood to my herd and do some more testing, but since the Welsh Mountains/Cobs are just two steps towards Jutlands in my original project, which does not allow any outside blood except from AC horses owned by me, it would be too much for me to handle. I already have two large breeding projects going on, and I don't think I have enough time and brain capacity for a third

I might consider saving some Welsh Mountains though and play around with them once I finish the others. The idea of genetic limits is very interesting.

I know how you feel about closed bloodlines, I share similar thoughts about it.
It certainly is very difficult handling multiple projects at once, especially since we are very limited on space, even with a secondary account (except I don't use mine as a frozen account).

I have only recently come up across what I can only define as genetic limiting in certain areas of the breeding process. But I'm not the only one, we already know about the limits we have on the eight report stats and difficulties getting maximum golds, so there are certain limits in the game we're already aware of. But I'm beginning to think that certain 'gene' types have certain limits while others that share the same commands do not. For instance, if you have a tall ear gene, maybe there's two types of tall ear genes, one that's just a static tall ear gene that can't get bigger, and the other that's a variable gene that allows the ear to progressively lengthen with successive selective breeding.

I don't know how true that is however, but some of my experiences with certain areas thus far, certainly leans me toward that conclusion.

[Aela]

I don't know how true that is however, but some of my experiences with certain areas thus far, certainly leans me toward that conclusion.

It sounds very plausible. I've made similar discoveries, just never been able to word it as well as you do.
I've come about static/variable instances with my Welsh Mountains as well, where the number of stallions I had near the end fell because I started rehoming the ones that consistently gave me offspring that were mostly 80/70, because they just couldn't compete with the few that - again, consistently - gave 100/90 foals. All of these horses were somewhat related, but obviously genetically different in their ability to push the limits, in my case, on body size and type.

I will admit my real life knowledge of genetics is not very expansive, I'm only strong on colours, but it makes perfect sense that some horses are able to reach further build- and conformation-wise than others. And I really like the static/variable hypothesis as, at least, a stepping stone to understanding the inner workings of the game.

As a sidenote, I also follow the Tobiano Pattern study, which is very interesting to me too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does seem to me that conformation, colour, performance ability, etc. work similarly at the core.

[BlackOak2]

It sounds very plausible. I've made similar discoveries, just never been able to word it as well as you do.
I've come about static/variable instances with my Welsh Mountains as well, where the number of stallions I had near the end fell because I started rehoming the ones that consistently gave me offspring that were mostly 80/70, because they just couldn't compete with the few that - again, consistently - gave 100/90 foals. All of these horses were somewhat related, but obviously genetically different in their ability to push the limits, in my case, on body size and type.

I will admit my real life knowledge of genetics is not very expansive, I'm only strong on colours, but it makes perfect sense that some horses are able to reach further build- and conformation-wise than others. And I really like the static/variable hypothesis as, at least, a stepping stone to understanding the inner workings of the game.

As a sidenote, I also follow the Tobiano Pattern study, which is very interesting to me too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does seem to me that conformation, colour, performance ability, etc. work similarly at the core.

I have done the same as well, selectively breeding out those horses that have not offered what I need. Perhaps we both have bred ourselves into corners by doing just that. We never will know what genes we dumped in favor of what we could see. But again, this is the chance we take.

My real life gene experience is perhaps better than some, but I'm just a layman playing at trouble, so we're probably sharing the same boat. Again, I don't know if the game is set up in this way, however, if I were designing a game like this (really if I had the ability in funds, knowledge and drive, I certainly would've delved! But wouldn't we all...), I would certainly enter genetic command data along these same lines with both static and variable controls. I'd also put in that they'd share the same locus (or is that loci?), just like cream and pearl so you couldn't have a double set of both at the same time.

On that sidenote. Yes, I agree. All of these do appear to work the same at the core. After all, even though they're coded to work like 'genes' we are only playing a game and to keep the coding simple and the game moving ahead without weird glitches and involved fixes, using the same types of base commands would be the way to go. Even for color, we appear to have both static and variable genes, and this seems to expand through all that makes our horses. Performance ability I'm much less sure about. I've just had a record breaking (and indeed very successful) stallion with an HGP of just 55650. Certainly there appears to be something I'm missing. I can't say for certain how much static or variable genes go into something like competing, or what's behind a horse that performs like he does. He is certainly a puzzle for me that does beg more questions and perhaps even negate certain preconceived answers. But again, as for the rest of the genes, they appear to work the same at the core. Unlocking such a puzzle does unlock the ability to selective breed, however even then, it will come with a certain amount of guesswork and chance.

FYI, the stallion in question: http://www.horseworldonline.net/horse/profile/1667992