How many of you are planning........

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Brandi*

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to add to your programs this year???? And how many of you are trying to downsize? I am not counting the foals that everyone is having now. Do you want to add a mare or two? A stallion? Or do you have a few too many mares or stallions?

I was just thinking today about the economy and thought I would ask
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We are continuing to add a few horses that we want for our breeding program. Which will mean buying at least three more mares and maybe a colt. :DOH!

Our purchasing has more to do with crosses we want to make in order to enhance the look and movement in the horses we are producing from the Rio De Oro, Patton, Double Destiny/Baccarra & First lines. As the competiton is evolving and getting better and better, we feel the need to continually evaluate/refine what we are looking & breeding for in our horses. A yearly process for us anyway.
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Doing both!

We're adding a mare and stallion, but have also sold a few that we had thought to keep and will be letting a few others go that are duplicates (mother and couple daughters one or two of the three will go).

We're also ultimately trying to scale down a bit, but I go slowly down as I'm picky on where they go! I'd like to be in the 35-40 head range as it's easier maintenance-wise for me. Right now we're back up to 60 after foaling so we'll only breed 4-5 mares this year instead of 10-15.
 
I think my tweaking is done for this year...

There is one really nice 2yo filly that wasn't exactly right for me that I've traded for a mare that will be a good match for what we have going on, and I just added a colt as a stallion (show/breeding) prospect. There are some I recently sold. I have a couple "new" mares coming home next month but they are ones I bought long ago and stayed where they were for breeding / foaling... So it "seems" like I've done a lot of recent changes, but it's really just a trade and a colt.

One thing I think as a breeder is that you have to be open to changes as you go forward. To be at your best in terms of potential, you have to be open to making changes in your breeding stock. Able to identify what maybe isn't working as well for you as it should (but may work incredible for someone else) and be ready to take advantage of opportunities to improve as you find them.

With my 2008 foals, I am probably retaining at least two of them (I may offer my grey-grulla filly, Passion...). My homebred colt is hopefully going to be the homebred kick butt show gelding I have wanted for years, and my double Buckeroo buckskin filly... If I sold her now, I'd not want to come off the few dollars I think it would take to "replace" her in a year or two! I like her so much and can't wait to actually meet her and her momma next month.

These are my two new additions...

Colt, Cross Countrys Brass Monkey: ............................................ Mare, Wee Equine Acres Dun Sweet:

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I added a mare to my herd back in January, I'm keeping one, possibly two 2008 foals. I have one mare to sell, but I would like to find a black & white pinto mare, so I'm still sort of looking, but probably won't purchase anymore this year, unless the perfect one comes along...

Here is Almost Heavens Frosty Chip I bought in January.

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We sold a mare this year and have replaced her, but don't plan to add any more mares. To get a new mare, we have to sell one that we have at least until we get more fencing done and more stalls built. I don't ever want to have a large number of horses, we are just about right at this time. However, I do plan to eventually get a colt from a particular stallion that I LOVE, but it may be next year or the year after before I buy one. I want to be able to keep some fillies by my current stallion, so I'd like to have something to breed them to.

Thank you Rita of WeeOkie Farm for allowing us to buy WeeOkies Cool Dudes Parisienne, a 32.50" dun pinto mare! She'll be coming home after she has her foal. (Excuse the VERY windy day, we live in Oklahoma, after all!)

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I'd love to add another mare or two, but its just not in my budget and with current arrangements would be a little tight on space. But, we'll see what the year has to offer.
 
We are making some changes this year. We've added one mare, sold a stallion and bought another.

I have a couple of geldings and a 2yr filly that would like to sell to good "using" homes, (whether pet or show) and at that point I will be looking for 1 or two mares.

Changing things around but trying to keep the "numbers" the same.
 
We've got a few for sale as well as this year's babies so technically we're "downsizing" lol But if I can get my appaloosa mare sold and a couple of the other boys moved (they're being sold on payments, just need to get those last payment(s) and them picked up
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) then I will be adding at least one breeding age mare and if possible a 2-3 year old filly, just have to find the ones I want!
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We are downsizing cause we simply don't want to breed anymore. The market is just too bad for us wanting to breed for more foals. This year we are keeping our 2 hombred fillies. Sold one Big City baby and selling the one colt we had born. Selling 2 mares, one is sold, and a performance gelding.

What we are doing is showing more. We have actually bought 2 brand new babies. One is going to be a gelding who is a 3/4 brother to our filly JMS I Ain't No Drama Queen and a stud colt who I can't wait to see grow up. Bunch of yearlings next year, should be fun lol.
 
Well i has been a spring full of changes here thus far
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. I have two mares coming home in June from Sheryl, and i am looking at another mare right now that i plan to work something out on. I really really like all three of them and think the crosses will come out as i hope. Candy (East Acres Cotton Candy) is in foal to Sheryls stallion, Jinx, Buckwheat son, for 2009 so that foal will be exciting for me, and Benita (Wa-Full Benita AMHR/ASPC) will be bred to my stallion Narko (BTU Line bred, Crown Prince son) for his first foal next year. Then, if everything comes through with the mare i am looking at right now, she will be crossed to Narko or possibly Lights for 2009.

Then, i have offered two for sale right now. Stetson (07 Colt, paternal brother to Narko) is available and Lights (28.5" stallion A/R) is available.

I've made some changes on the show string and am pretty happy (i mean THRILLED) with them.

Im not on purpose at the moment planning to "cut back" nor am i planning to "expand", whatever happens along the way really.
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Its been an exciting year
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My numbers are basically the same, even though we've sold seven horses so far this year. All five of the fillies that were born this year ended up being keepers, and we got an offer we couldn't refuse on a half-sister to our mare AMayZing so we added her to the herd.

The economy doesn't seem to be a problem for those that have bought horses from us, even though the buyers are far from "rich". Minis are so much less expensive to keep than full-size horses ya know.
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Great Topic,

I have had up to 13-15 in my herd, before I realized what direction we wanted to go.

Downsized a couple of years ago, to make room for our bloodline.

I had been working for awhile.

Now I have my 3 mares that are what I decided to keep and breed with 14 year old Stallion.

Than when old enough be able to breed with my coming up Stallion Rowdy who is only 28" at 2 years old and Tested Positive for Homozygous .

I want to keep 3 fillies one from each of these mares which I figured have great bloodlines and conformation for what I want to go with this new guy... Have two fillies now, and hope to have a filly from my leapard Mare next year.

If not might just keep a colt and geld, with our name for showing our bloodline.

This way I have my name on what I am showing... finally.... So in total I should end up with 5-6 mares for my breeding program and that is what is right for us.

Hope my Dreams do come true... We have 2 fillies so far to grow up to make us proud.

We will have to see what happens next year. but never say never...
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We're adding a mare this fall. But we're not sure about breeding her. Can't find a perfect stallion. So we may just take her back to the show ring instead.
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I'd like to sell a palomino filly. I bought her since she was my stallion's baby sight unseen. But she's not maturing to the right height. 36" mare and 33.75" stallion and I'll be lucky if she gets to 32". Dangit! But I don't have her advertised yet.
 
Changes? Well yes, I have few I'd like to make. I would really like a couple more mares but haven't found that perfect mare yet. I am only casually looking at this point tho. We added an A/R gelding in February but that was more because he needed a home than because I was looking for a gelding. I have 1 and possibly 2 stallions slated for sale and/or gelding this summer since I've got a couple of yearlings that I will be using in another couple of years. Until then I am planning to breed to outside stallions and hope for fillies to diversify my mare base a bit. Right now I have 13 horses and another on the way. I have set myself an arbitrary limit of 25 with 20 being about right I think. I am not in a big hurry to get there tho, I can wait to find the right horses.
 
I've all ready sold one mare that I really wanted to keep but the right situation came along so.........

I've got one mare that I REALLY want that is going through an auction this month. I've been trying to get her since she was a yearling! I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to bid since I'm working that day.
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Then, since I've retired Gracie, I'd like to replace her with another good mare. I haven't decided if I want to sell her or not. She's such a sweet girl and has been here since she was 2. I have a hard time selling the ones that have been around for a while.

I've thought seriously about selling my 2 stallions and getting one really good one but hubby keeps telling me no.
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He likes these boys. We are letting one go to UT for a year or two on a lease. Kilroy really wants some more girls. I promised him more than 1 this year.....Anybody want to breed for a really nice mini mule?
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As planned all along, our little group has doubled from 3 to 6 this year. Well, actually, the plan was 3 to 5 but I bought a gorgeous weanling filly and then got a great deal on a really nice yearling filly so what could I do??
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IMO the economy did affect our buying, in that there are far more quality horses in our price range now, which is great for us as buyers but depressing for the breed
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I have a very specific goal in mind with the minis and have no problem changing my program as needed as we learn more but I think we are headed in the right direction. If I had had to sell some in order to fit in our new ones then I may not have been able to, as selling is much harder than buying, now especially but always has been.

I think my buying for the next year or so is done, although (in response to Jill's post about possibly selling Passion)... "I don't need another filly, I don't need another filly, I... aughhhhhh, I NEED another gorgeous filly!!!
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The torture this board puts me through.....
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We have already added 2 mares that are already ASPC/AMHR registered, and another one mare that could possibly be hardshipped into AMHR since she is already ASPC and currently under 38 inches and will be three years old next spring, and we also added a mare that is 31 inches being AMHA/AMHR registered that is bred to our AMHR/AMHA registered leopard appaloosa for a 2009 foal.

We have sold a few horses this spring and improved our breeding program also along with improving our show string as well. I would like to add another ASPC/AMHR stallion as well that way we have another stallion that is ASPC/AMHR registered, that will be our next purchase maybe this summer.

See what develops down the road over show season I guess.
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We are adding!! I finally got my Bodacious filly after years of drooling over his get. Blue Ribbon Bodacious Elegance, then we had a Buckingham filly that I am keeping. So I am up 2! I do have several for sale and Im down 5 compared to last year. I believe I have 13 now
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not good guess I need to buy one more!
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