Please note: Breeding is only available on Horse Isle 2: LifeCycle
Life Events
0 years old ...............Congratulations, your foal has been born.
0.5 years old ............Completion of nursing, your foal can now be separated form its mother.
2.5 years old ............Your colt/filly can now be ridden and stat trained.
4 years old ...............Your colt/filly is now a fully-grown horse and can be bred.
20 years old .............Your horse has aged to the point where they can no longer compete or be bred, however they can still be ridden.
25 years old .............Your horse has lived an exciting and fulfilled life with you and it’s now their turn to go to the big pasture in the sky.
1 year of game time = 2 weeks (14 days) of real time.
Breeding for Color
Breeding for color is probably the most difficult thing to breed for. Most of the time you won't get the color you want and a lot of the time you're going to get brown. The table at the bottom of the HorseIsle 2 LC website is very helpful (bottom of Hi2LC site > Breeding Tables > toward the bottom). However, breeding for color gets pretty muddy and comes down to the luck of the draw.
How to Use the Table
All horses on Hi2LC has a base color. These colors are listed on the table. If you are unsure of the base of your horses, check out the BBB in the library. Find the breed and color and it is listed at the top. You need to know the base of the horse to be able to use the table. Once you know the bases of the two horses you bred together, go to the table and pick a parent. Find the horse's base either along the top or the side. Then find the other horse's base on the top or side, whichever you didn't pick last time. Follow the one on the top down and the one on the side over and where they meet are the possible colors of the foal. However, this isn't the only thing to consider. If the horse has a pattern, that needs to be taken into consideration too. Here is a hypothetical situation to showcase how many different colors can come into play.
Parent Colors: Dapple Rose Grey (Base Chestnut, Pattern Grey) and Black Tobiano (Base Black, Pattern Tobiano)
The table says this: Bay, Seal Brown, Black, Chestnut. So I have a 25% chance of each of those colors, as a base. There are a lot more colors available than those.
The List of Possible Colors:
Bay
Bay Tobiano
Brindle Bay
White Grey
Seal Brown
Seal Brown Tobiano
Light Dapple Grey
Black
Black Tobiano
Steel Grey
Dark Dapple Grey
Chestnut
Chestnut Tobiano
Brindle Chestnut
Dapple Rose Grey
That's a lot of colors! So, the foal can be any of those colors. This is why it is so hard to breed for color.
The Color Tiers
There are three tiers to colors. First tier is chrome patterns. Chrome patterns cancel out all other patterns.
Chrome patterns are:
Sabino, which controls Blagdon
Frame, which controls Overo and Medicine Hat
Tobiano, which also controls Tovero
Manchado
Splash White
Tier Two patterns are Whole Body Patterns. Whole Body patterns cannot cancel out chrome patterns.
Whole Body Patterns are:
Grey
White
Roan, which controls Rabicano, Frosted and Varnish
Tier Three patterns are Appaloosa patterns. Appaloosa patterns cannot override Whole Body Patterns or Chrome Patterns.
Appaloosa Patterns are:
Leopard
Snowflake
Blanket
Lace
Few-Spots
Some things to remember about colors/patterns:
*If one parent has a pattern, the foal has a 50% chance of inheriting that pattern. If both parents have the same pattern, the foal has a 75% chance of inheriting that pattern.
*Tobiano controls Tovero. If you have Tobiano and Tovero in a particular breed, you can get either one, even though only one may be present.
*In some cases, certain color outcomes are unavailable when using recipes or crossing. This is how the game figures out what to do. So, you breed a Dun to a Pearl. The outcome breed doesn't have Dun, Bay or Pearl. This causes a color error. What used to happen was that the color outcome was automatically chestnut. In a breed with no chestnut, this created a further error and the game chose one of the parent's color. As of December 2012, there was a new rule added. When a color error occurs you now get a random color within the breed. So, within our example of Dun and Pearl, the game would randomly pick a color in the outcome breed.
Difficult Colors to Breed For and the Issues They Cause
This is the section where I'll list the rare colors that have caused breeders some difficulties.
Pearl
Pearl is a notoriously hard color to breed for. You have a 25% chance unless you have 2 pearl parents. By far, it is the hardest color to breed for in game. This color causes issues in all breeds because #1 it's hard to get and #2 it's hard to pass on to another generation. With a slim 25% chance of pearl, it's pure luck.
White
This is White, not White Grey. White Grey is Bay with a pattern of Grey. White is Bay with a pattern of White. These two colors are completely different and shouldn't be confused. This color causes issues with the American White breed. Since two White AW's cannot create a Cremello, you get this very interesting color disparity. Practically all the AW are white and this means that most of the future foals of the breed will be white. It's this whole vicious cycle of one color over populating and Cremello slowly fades away. To further the problem, Cremello + White = Buckskin and Palomino. Neither are present in the AW, so it is pure luck on whether you get Cremello or White.
Champagne/Ivory Champagne
Champagne is a pretty easy color to get. Ivory Champagne is pretty hard to keep. This causes problems in the American Cream Draft. The ACD has 3 colors, Gold Champagne, Ivory Champagne and Gold Ivory Champagne. Gold Champagne is base Champagne and Gold Ivory/Ivory Champagne is base Ivory Champagne. One peek at the color table shows the problem with these colors. Gold Champagne plus any other color in the breed equals Gold Champagne. And Ivory Champagne plus Ivory Champagne yields Gold Champagne 50% of the time. This also creates a color disparity and ensures that the majority of foals in this breed come out Gold Champagne.
Breeding for Markings
Okay, there really isn't any rhyme or reason to markings. I've had foals from no face marking parents suddenly sprout bald faces. It's frustrating and random, just like everything else. I've confirmed that face markings are random and that leg markings are, more or less, inherited. There is some wiggle room with leg markings however. With the addition of the marking guide at the bottom of the horses page, you can gauge what a foal will end up with, when they grow up. On a scale of 0 - 4, it rates the leg markings. However, this doesn't shed light on how markings are inherited. One of my latest foals came out 3 3 0 2 and her mother was 3 1 0 2. Her father was 0 0 0 0, so logically her markings should have stayed the same or gone down. I am kind of puzzled about that 1 becoming a 3. So, markings will continue to be baffling.
Breeding for genes is probably the easiest and most frustrating thing to breed for. There are two exp bonuses that make your chances of getting a good foal better. The first exp bonus comes when a horse has 1,000 exp and the second exp bonus comes when a horse has 10,000 exp.
2 horses bred together, neither with 1k exp bonus, have a gene variance of -4/+4
1 horse with 1k bonus exp and 1 horse without 1k bonus exp, have a gene variance of -3/+4
2 horses with 1k exp bonus each have a gene variance of -2/+4
1 horse with 10k exp bonus and 1 horse without 1k bonus exp have a gene variance of -2/+4
1 horse with 10k exp bonus and 1 horse with 1k exp bonus have a gene variance of -1/+4
2 horses with 10k exp bonus each have a gene variance of 0/+4
To get the best foals possible from your breeding stock it is best to train them all up to 10,000 exp.
The Exception to the Exp Bonus Rules: The creators put in an exception to the exp bonus rule so that +150's won't constantly breed +150's. It goes like this:
If both horses have +25 in a stat, there is a 50% chance of the foal's stat being +25, 25% that it will be +24 and 25% that the stat will be +23. This exception beats out exp bonuses that the parents may have.
The genetic stats for Grade horses range from -100 to +100. However, don’t think that you can use them as a fast way to get to a perfect +150 purebred horse. The genetic stats for Grade horses are converted to ‘regular’ horse stats when calculating a foal’s stats. To convert your Grade horse’s stats to a ‘regular’ horse’s stats simply divide their genetic numbers by 4.
For example: A mare has genetic stats as follows: +33, -37, -14, +8, +32, +68.
By dividing each of these numbers by 4 we can calculate her ‘regular’ horse stats, which would be: +8, -9, -4, +2, +8, +17 If, in dividing one of your Grade horse’s stats you find you get a decimal number simply round it up or down. Decimal numbers are typically rounded up if the decimal is .5 or over and rounded down if the decimal is .49 or lower.
2 grades bred together, neither with 1k exp bonus, have a gene variance of -16/+16
1 grade with 1k bonus exp and 1 grade without 1k bonus exp, have a gene variance of -8/+16
2 grades with 1k exp bonus each have a gene variance of -4/+16
1 grade with 10k exp bonus and 1 grade without 1k bonus exp have a gene variance of -4/16
1 grade with 10k exp bonus and 1 grade with 1k exp bonus have a gene variance of -2/+16
2 grades with 10k exp bonus each have a gene variance of 0/+16
Grade Exception to the Exp Bonus Rules: If both grades have +100 in a stat, there is a chance of 12 different numbers (3 total numbers 23 - 25 for regular breeds, times 4 for grade numbers). You have a chance of +89 through +100. You may be wondering why it isn't 88 - 100 because 100 minus 12 = 88. You have to count 100 as an outcome, so if you subtract 12 total outcomes, it's 89.You have a 25% chance of 89 – 92, 25% chance of 93 – 96 and 50% chance of 97 – 100.
The default formulas for determining the breed of a foal are as follows:
Breed A + Breed A = 100% Breed A foal
Breed A + Breed B = 50% Grade foal / 25% Breed A foal / 25% Breed B foal
Breed A + Grade = 75% Grade foal / 25% Breed A foal
Grade + Grade = Grade / 1% chance of any breed
Some horse breeds when combined may produce and entirely new breed, or may favor the production of one breed over another. A complete list of breed combinations may be found on the HI2 - LC website. Click below on the Breeding Chart button.
Height is determined by the height of the parents. The really interesting thing is that height is the same across all breeds. Say you breed an 18 hands horse to a 14 hands horse. As long as both those horses are max height for their breed, you will get a tall horse. It's a bit strange when you think about it. If you bred a max height Shetland to a max height TB and the foal came out TB, you could potentially get a 17.2 hands TB out of a 10 hands Shetland.
The height conversion equation assumes that foals are born at 60% of their adult height. If you actually tinker around a bit, you'll realize that this percentage varies with each horse, and can be anywhere between 57% to 63% of their adult height. However, for averaging-sake, the number rounded to 60%.
Now, to predict the height of your foal, you use the Golden Ratio. Let's use a 4.3hh filly as an example.
Now, first we need to convert 4.3hh to inches. Remember, there are 4 inches in a hand, so 4.3hh converts to 19" (4*4 + 3). (Remember: " is math talk for inches.)
Then, the ratio will look something like this: 19/? = 60/100. The ? is what we are solving for, the adult height. The equation is, quite literally, asking: 19" out of ? is equal to 60% out of 100%.
To solve this, you do the following: (19*100)/60 or 19" times 100%, then divide it by 60%, to get the magical adult height. The number you should get is 31.667", which rounds to 32". Knowing that there are 4" in a hand, we can then convert this to the foal's adult height of 8.0hh.)
Please remember that this chart is not 100% accurate, but it should predict the adult height of your foals within 1-2 inches.
Foal's Birth Height === Predicted Adult Height
(both inches and hands are included, just in case)
4.3hh (19") === 8.0hh (32")
5.0hh (20") === 8.1hh (33")
5.1hh (21") === 8.3hh (35")
5.2hh (22") === 9.1hh (37")
5.3hh (23") === 9.2hh (38")
6.0hh (24") === 10.0hh (40")
6.1hh (25") === 10.2hh (42")
6.2hh (26") === 10.3hh (43")
6.3hh (27") === 11.1hh (45")
7.0hh (28") === 11.3hh (47")
7.1hh (29") === 12.0hh (48")
7.2hh (30") === 12.2hh (50")
7.3hh (31) === 13.0hh (52")
8.0hh (32") === 13.1hh (53")
8.1hh (33") === 13.3hh (55)
8.2hh (34") === 14.1hh (57")
8.3hh (35") === 14.2hh (58")
9.0hh (36") === 15.0hh (60")
9.1hh (37") === 15.2hh (62")
9.2hh (38") === 15.3hh (63")
9.3hh (39") === 16.1hh (65")
10.0hh (40") === 16.3hh (67")
10.1hh (41") === 17.0hh (68")
10.2hh (42") === 17.2hh (70")
10.3hh (43") === 18.0hh (72")
11.0hh (44") === 18.1hh (73")
11.1hh (45") === 18.3hh (75")
11.2hh (46") === 19.1hh (77")
11.3hh (47") === 19.2hh (78")
First off, note the genes the two parents have. Below is an example set of genes.
21 8 -12 0 14 25
14 20 25 18 19 21
Next step, figure out what kind of bonus the parents have. The example parents have 1k exp bonus each. The gene variance is -2/+4. This means that the parents genes can go down by 2, down by 1, stay the same, go up by 1, go up by 2, go up by 3 or go up by 4. To begin you compare the first stat of each parent, 21 and 14. Take the lowest and subtract two. 14 - 2 = 12. The lowest that the stat can go is 12. You do this for each stat. The end product looks like this:
Lowest the genes can go: 12 6 -14 -2 12 19 (+33)
To figure out how high the genes will go you do basically the same thing. You compare the first stat of each parent and take the highest and add 4 to it. You do this for each stat. The end product looks like this:
Highest the genes can go: 25 24 25 22 23 25 (+144)
So, a foal out of both these parents can be anywhere from +33 to +144. If there is a chance that the foal is a grade, you just multiply by 4.
Grade Genes:
Lowest: 48 24 -56 -8 48 76
Highest: 100 96 100 88 92 100
The personality stats for your foal will be randomly inherited from either parent following a -1/+1 rule. Using a stallion and mare as examples we can calculate the personality range for their foal. Stallion has the personality stat number 3 in Brave. Mare has the personality stat number 7 in Brave. If these two were to breed, the stat range for Brave would be 2-4 and 6-8. Nothing in between. This can be applied to the rest of the attributes in a personality. As with genetics, if you want to shorten the range then breed your mare to a stallion which has a similar personality.