Changing

I posted a week or so ago about thinking about changing up my herd. Well, we are in the process of changing right now.

Morgans

In the process of selling off a bunch of them. After all sell, I will have only 23 active Morgans(by active I mean breeding stock, I do have a few other geldings and retirees). 10 mares and 13 stallions. Before I had 49 active Morgans, 17mares, 32 stallions. My new goals is to place more selection on stallions, and also to try to keep around only 30 Morgans. I am also decreasing the number I breed each season to only about 3. In doing this, I am trying to increase the intensity of my selection and husbandry. If all works well, I should be able to produce a higher proportion of nice show horses. I am a bit worried about COI though. I purposefully bred to have high numbers of Morgans before to increase genetic diversity.

We are also changing our show ring goals. You will now see our Morgans cutting cows one month, then high-stepping it around the Gaited ring the next. :)

A quick look at the grey gene now

Some of you may have read my post about the frequency of the grey gene in my Morgan herd. Well, I recalculated for the 23 Morgans I am keeping and found this:
7/10 Mares are grey. All are heterozygous. That is an allelic frequency of .35 and a phenotypic frequency of .7!
5/13 Stallions are grey. 2 are homozygous. That is an allelic frequency of .27 and a phenotypic frequency of .38.
So overall, the allelic frequency is .3 and the phenotypic frequency is now .52! So half of my Morgans are now grey! Augh.

Appaloosas

No longer breeding them. Our 3 appaloosas have already sold.

Single Footing Horses

Not really changing anything with them. I breed these guys for fun. We have 4 right now, 2 mares, 2 stallions.

Local Stock

Phasing out frequent local stock use. I once used them a lot, but have been finding less use for them lately.

Dutch Warmbloods/Dutch Harness Horses

We now have Dutch Harness Horses at The Carousel! Well, 2 stallions, but that's a start. I used to breed them on my other ranch, but I prefer to operate only one ranch. My first goal on that ranch was color, but on this ranch I am going to change it up by founding my herd with mostly performance customs. Here are our first DHHs, one regular import, one performance:
Almere
Roos

I still have some on the other ranch though, and I am trying to decide what to do with them. I may keep them and breed 1 mare for a colorful foal each season for fun, or I may just sell them all.