Alright, so I have been enrolled in my equine studies class since the middle of August and I get incredibly frustrated with it almost every day. I am paying ALOT of money for this class--they could at least teach their students the right things.
Today: we are learning about color genetics which I have always found fascinating so I have been doing a lot of research for years. PRETTY sure the dun gene on bay does NOT create a buckskin dun. NO no NO!
Palominos do NOT depend on the agouti gene whatsoever. Today we learned that in order to have a palomino, a horse must be either homozygous or heterozygous for agouti. WRONG.
Greys and silvers are very different--my teacher keeps showing students pictures of silver dapples and telling them that the are the same as a grey. Aghhhh....she also has been showing different types of palominos-"regular", "golden", and "chocolate"--but she says they all have the same genotype. The first two, yes. A chocolate palomino?? NO. I hate that term because chocolate makes me think black based and palomino makes me think red based. Very contradicting and confusing for newbies. The pictures she showed were most likely a silver smokey black.
The lethal white genes that come from true white horses and frames are different!! Today we were taught that a horse with one W gene causes a horse to be white always. Two W genes causes lethal white. That's correct. THEN we were taught that its most common in Paints. WRONG. They are completely different genes. Yes, frames have the lethal white gene BUT one LWO gene does not make the horse true white. No no NO-they are different
We also learned about inbreeding, linebreeding, closebreeding, etc. She told us absolutely never ever line or closebreed horses because 9 times out of 10 it will end in defects or a very poor quality horse. In some cases, yes, but not always. I tried to tell her about Buckeroo and how well line and closebreeding has worked for little king farm. I was then lectured about how those horses probably have tons of defects and would never produce well. I didn't tell her that my family which has been breeding minis for about 30 or so years has practiced line and closebreeding on more than one occasion and every time has resulted in exactly what we wanted. Of course you have to be careful and it could backfire if you don't know the line you're working with, but I felt a little sad that the word "never" was used when I feel it has helped to improve the miniature horse breed.
Oh and we're supposed to breed average quality horses with another average quality horse because it almost always results in a higher quality horse. Breeding an exceptional horse with another exceptional horse almost always results in a lower quality horse. WHAT????!!!!
Lastly was a few weeks ago when we were learning about different breeds-the shetlands were described as stocky, fuzzy ponies that make good childrens pets. Pictures of them looked like they were short, fat little minis from the 1970s or something. I wanted to whip out the journal and show everyone how gorgeous they really are and how they make such amazing show horses
She did somewhat well with the minis but only talked about AMHA and then said they register horses 38" and under. Hmmmm....
Sorry for the negative post, it's just frustrating for me sometimes. The biggest thing for me is that in 2 1/2 months, my teacher has not ONCE mentioned how the horse market is right now. We've learned about breeding techniques and how to increase conception rates, oh and that we should breed average/low quality with average/low quality, but not once has she mentioned how many unwanted horses there are out there right now and how low the prices for horses are at the moment. I figured that'd be one of the first things taught...as it should be.
Today: we are learning about color genetics which I have always found fascinating so I have been doing a lot of research for years. PRETTY sure the dun gene on bay does NOT create a buckskin dun. NO no NO!
Palominos do NOT depend on the agouti gene whatsoever. Today we learned that in order to have a palomino, a horse must be either homozygous or heterozygous for agouti. WRONG.
Greys and silvers are very different--my teacher keeps showing students pictures of silver dapples and telling them that the are the same as a grey. Aghhhh....she also has been showing different types of palominos-"regular", "golden", and "chocolate"--but she says they all have the same genotype. The first two, yes. A chocolate palomino?? NO. I hate that term because chocolate makes me think black based and palomino makes me think red based. Very contradicting and confusing for newbies. The pictures she showed were most likely a silver smokey black.
The lethal white genes that come from true white horses and frames are different!! Today we were taught that a horse with one W gene causes a horse to be white always. Two W genes causes lethal white. That's correct. THEN we were taught that its most common in Paints. WRONG. They are completely different genes. Yes, frames have the lethal white gene BUT one LWO gene does not make the horse true white. No no NO-they are different
We also learned about inbreeding, linebreeding, closebreeding, etc. She told us absolutely never ever line or closebreed horses because 9 times out of 10 it will end in defects or a very poor quality horse. In some cases, yes, but not always. I tried to tell her about Buckeroo and how well line and closebreeding has worked for little king farm. I was then lectured about how those horses probably have tons of defects and would never produce well. I didn't tell her that my family which has been breeding minis for about 30 or so years has practiced line and closebreeding on more than one occasion and every time has resulted in exactly what we wanted. Of course you have to be careful and it could backfire if you don't know the line you're working with, but I felt a little sad that the word "never" was used when I feel it has helped to improve the miniature horse breed.
Oh and we're supposed to breed average quality horses with another average quality horse because it almost always results in a higher quality horse. Breeding an exceptional horse with another exceptional horse almost always results in a lower quality horse. WHAT????!!!!
Lastly was a few weeks ago when we were learning about different breeds-the shetlands were described as stocky, fuzzy ponies that make good childrens pets. Pictures of them looked like they were short, fat little minis from the 1970s or something. I wanted to whip out the journal and show everyone how gorgeous they really are and how they make such amazing show horses
She did somewhat well with the minis but only talked about AMHA and then said they register horses 38" and under. Hmmmm....
Sorry for the negative post, it's just frustrating for me sometimes. The biggest thing for me is that in 2 1/2 months, my teacher has not ONCE mentioned how the horse market is right now. We've learned about breeding techniques and how to increase conception rates, oh and that we should breed average/low quality with average/low quality, but not once has she mentioned how many unwanted horses there are out there right now and how low the prices for horses are at the moment. I figured that'd be one of the first things taught...as it should be.
