The Carousel

[CarouselCowgirl]

My current goals are vastly different from my long term goals. My long term goals are to breed Morgans and create my own breed. However, I am waiting until the game develops a bit more to take on those goals.

For now,
Current Goals
1.Breed Grey Belgians
2. Breed Grey Percherons
3. Breed Percherons "from scratch"
4. Have and breed predominately grey and black Percherons (WIP)
5. Breed Spanish Normans (On hold)

I own 2 ranches. The Carousel & The Vintage Carousel
Currently, The Carousel is in charge of goals #3 and 4, and will eventually be for #5. The Vintage Carousel is focused on goals #1 and #2.

If you breed Percherons or Belgians then I would love to hear from you!

[CarouselCowgirl]

Well, The Vintage Carousel is ceasing it's breeding operations for a while. We have completed goals #1 and #2.

Goal #1 resulted in 8 grey Belgians. 4 male and 4 female
The colts:

Unnamed #133649
Mealy Bay going Grey


Galileo
Sorrel going Grey


Barney
Bay going Grey


Weirdmageddon
Black going Grey

The fillies:

Smoke Rises
Black going Grey


Unnamed #131471
Sorrel going Grey


Unnamed #130916
Blue Roan going Grey


Unnamed #131553
Black going Grey


And then we produced 12 Grey Percherons. 5 males and 7 females
The colts:

Unnamed #133595
Sorrel Dun going Grey


Unnamed #132997
Palomino going Grey


Stitches
Mealy Bay going Grey


Unnamed #130917
Dunalino going Grey


Unnamed #132887
Sorrel going Grey

The fillies:

Unnamed #129502
Sorrel going Grey


Unnamed #131954
Sorrel going Grey


Unnamed #130818
Bay Dun going Grey


Unnamed #131275
Mealy Bay going Grey


Unnamed #130908
Palomino going Grey


Unnamed #131807
Palomino going Grey


Unnamed #132603
Cremello going Grey
* really difficult to tell, but I am pretty sure she is grey. Her head has been greying compared to other cremellos



That's all! For right now, these guys are or are going to be sent over to The Carousel for a while, until I retire the rest of my breeding stock at Vintage. Soon though, all the Percherons will be moving back to The Vintage Carousel to chill and/or stand at stud. Some Belgians will come back with them, though I have not decided who yet. After I get everybody moved around, I will be starting operations back up at The Carousel and I'll be working on goal #3.

[CarouselCowgirl]

I've been working on goal #3 at The Carousel for a while now. Specifically I was working on breeding Norman Cobs, and I had a really hard time with it. I ended up with waaaaay more Half Belgians than I did Norman Cobs. I started with 24 studs, and 18 broodmares of BelgianxTarpan or BelgianxForest Horse crosses, and I was hoping to get at least one foal from each horse. I ended up with 20 Norman Cobs, 12 colts and 8 fillies, but in the end I lost 6 studs and 6 broods without getting a Norman Cob from them. That's 28.57% of my stock that retired without offspring.

I've decided I want to try breeding another round of Norman Cobs with a different breeding strategy, to see if I can improve my results. I've sent the Norman Cob weanlings over to The Vintage Carousel to hang out for a bit. I'm buying up some foundation Belgians, Forest Horses, and Tarpans right now and plan to start crossing them to start another Norman Cob breeding program.

Here are some pics of the Norman Cob colts and fillies chilling out at pasture at The Vintage Carousel:
The colts:


and the fillies:

[VintageCarousel]

Well, my second round of Norman Cob breeding is coming to an end. I used 13 Belgian cross studs and 19 Belgian cross mares this time. I ended up getting 15 Norman Cob offspring, this time with 8 of my breeding stock not producing on. That is 25% which is a slight improvement from last time. Norman Cobs are tricky to get. The difference with round 2 was that I put a lot of selection pressure on getting Belgian crosses with several stars for Norman Cobs, whereas round 1 I put no pressure.

Having a mix of Belgian and Tarpan genes just produced foals all over the place. Full siblings were nothing alike. That is to be expected though with hybrid x hybrid breeding and I am glad to have such a challenge in a game! I think if I try again for more Norman Cobs I will start by breeding several generations of Belgian x Forest Horses or Belgian x Tarpans to kind of "even out" the genes a bit. It would be interesting to see if this increases the number of Norman Cob offspring.

Here are the colts from round 2:


And the fillies:


For now I am bored with breeding for Norman Cobs though lol. I am moving on to starting for Percherons. I am going to start small and send maybe 5 random Norman Cobs over to The Carousel to start Percheron breeding. First thing though I need to go purchase some Belgians and Forest Horses to cross...

[CarouselCowgirl]

Round 1 of Percheron breeding is done. I sent 4 Norman Cobs to The Carousel, 2 male and 2 female. I ended up getting 5 Percheron foals from 3 of the 4. The other 1 Norman Cob I decided wasn't a good match for the studs I had and I sent her back to The Vintage Carousel to wait for another round. I've started breeding for a 2nd small round of Percheron breeding.

I've also started a small side project at The Carousel where I am breeding 3 generation Belgian x Forest Horses to try and breed for consistency and stars for Norman Cobs. I hope to end up with a nice colt and filly to send to The Vintage Carousel to wait while I breed some 3 generation Belgian x Tarpans.

[Argent II]

Love those group photos!

[CarouselCowgirl]

Thank you, Argent!

[VintageCarousel]

Just a small update. I am still working on breeding the Norman Cobs to get Percherons. Progress has been slow due to my traveling for a while.

So far I have gotten Percheron offspring from 8/35 Norman Cobs. From those 8, I have gotten 17 Percherons. 11 colts, 6 fillies.

[CarouselCowgirl]

Update

I will soon be taking a break from breeding the Norman Cobs to get Percherons. I just don't want to burn myself out on this game by doing the same thing over and over, and I need to save up some PT so I can buy a bunch of Forest horses and Belgians(eventually, when I start breeding the Norman Cobs again)!

Right now on the farm, I have 4 Norman Cobs being bred, and after they are done, I will be completely moving into my "break". 2 are studs, 2 are broodmares. The 2 studs have each already produced a Percheron(yay!), the 2 mares I tried breeding on another round with no luck. I have a stud though that I think might be able to get a Percheron foal from these aged mares.

For my break, I will be breeding my Percherons to try and actually get some show horses and compete in something other than the local shows! I have already started a little. I picked 3 Percheron mares, and 2 stud colts, and moved them to The Carousel to breed and maybe show.

Here are my goals for my Percherons

Height: 15.1-17.1hh
Build: Medium Heavy pony-type

Phenotype Goals:
No short necks
All naturally short("bobbed") tails
light to moderate feathering
Uphill builds
No duns
Mainly grey and black coats

Abilities:
Mainly focusing on strength, stamina, tempo, and intelligence

My goal for these horses is to become champion marathon driving horses. I may also show them in other driving classes too.



So far, it has been nice to take a break and try something other than crossing horses to get a new breed.

[CarouselCowgirl]

Updates

On the last 4 Norman Cobs I was breeding - 3/4 produced Percherons. One mare just would not produce a percheron. She kept giving me 3*s with heights all over the place. Too tall. Too small. She was the first Norman Cob I lost without offspring.

I have been breeding Percherons for a while now, and I am pretty happy with the results. I haven't gotten any amazing results, but I am getting there. However, I will soon shut down Percheron breeding for a while and go back to breeding Norman Cobs to get Percherons. I saved up some PT and have started purchasing Belgians and Forest Horses to cross.

But, maybe I'll show off a bit about my Percherons first.
As for my goals:
Height and build - the majority of my horses are within these goals.
No short necks - Most I think have moderate length necks, which is what I want. I know several are short, but they are barely in that range.
All naturally short("bobbed") tails - the majority are naturally bobbed. I have some medium lengths left, and only one long I think.
light to moderate feathering - most have light feathering
Uphill builds - a good number of my horses are uphill
No duns - I think dun is mostly gone from this group.
Mainly grey and black coats - I've gotten several greys, but I'm not doing so well getting black. This will probably be more of a future goal.

Here are 2 of my favorites, 2 boys I've put up for public stud:
₡ Horror Movie


₡ Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is a grandson of Horror Movie. Can you tell? They have the same head for sure.

I've been sending the best over to The Vintage Carousel to chill for a while until I am ready to breed them. I'm excited to get back to producing more first generation Percherons, but it was fun breeding the Percherons together.