# Breeding 101: The Basics - Important information about geldings and spayed mares! - While they may not be able to procreate, spayed mares and geldings are the backbone of your program! As soon as they are spayed or gelded they begin to earn extra training points with every training session. This gives them the potential to be better show horses, so they earn more show points. Recognize their value and don't just toss your spayed and gelded foals away. Running out of space? Use that showing bonus to buy more barn space for them. While your breeding herd may be more fun, your showing herd is how you maintain your breeding program! - The Basics - Mares cannot be bred before age 4 or after age 20 - Horses live to be a minimum 17 years old. - Stallion cannot be bred before age 3 or after age 20 - Horses live to be a minimum 17 years old - Mares can only produce one foal a year unless their eggs are harvested and surrogate mares are used to produce multiple foals. - Members with a Premuim upgrade can harvest eggs from a mare in one of two ways - a single egg every 5 days during the regular breeding season - mass egg flush, which will produce anywhere from 8 to 14 eggs, and can only be done once per breeding season, after that point the mare will not be able to have another foal until the next breeding season. - Stallions can produce 50 foals via live cover in a single season. - There is no maximum on the number of foals stallions can produce via frozen semen/straws. - Semen can be saved as frozen ‘straws’ which can be used at a later date, or sold to other players - You can set an expiration date on straws, or leave the date open to keep the straw viable indefinitely. - Even after a stallion is deceased any straws previously collected will remain viable indefinitely unless an expiration date has been set - Inbreeding and linebreeding (breeding parents to offspring, or siblings to each other, etc.) have no consequences on Hunt And Jump. - When breeding via embryo transfer, the surrogate mare used has NO influence on the color or ability of the resulting foal.