So I've always kind of gotten anxiety about this and I wanted to see what everyone else does. I've recently bred two of my lines. In the past I would substitute a store horse if I didn't get enough horses for a full 8. For instance, my Arabian breeding out of 6 horses gave me 3 stallions. I'm thinking I'll just buy 3 mares to pair with them. But I've always worried it breaks up the "generation" if not all the horses are lined. What do you guys do? Do you use store horses to fill in the spots or when you don't get the right gender? 

I usually do. Maybe not with every foal I get (unless I'm lucky and I have all pairs), but if I get a mare and a stallion and they are from different lines and were born the same time, I'll just breed them. If not, then I just buy a store. Also, I'll sometimes want to expand my lines, so I'll buy 2 stores, breed them, and then breed the foal with my other/original lines.

I would have to use stores especially when I started my lines (because I pretty much have unpopular breeds) or else my lines would've bottlenecked and I wouldn't have them anymore!

I don't think substituting store horses in your lines breaks up the "generation". I usually just count back to the oldest pair to see what generation I'm on.

I always buy a store to pair with my bred dogs. It helps prevent me from ending up with no animals to breed with, especially because I only have about 20 or so animals. If I had a larger number of animals, I would probably just breed the bred animals together and not buy stores, but for such a low number of animals. It makes it easier for me to just add stores.

And I dont consider adding stores as breaking up the generations :)

★ Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating★

All of my Silent Hill-lined dogs have store mates. I only ever have 2 dogs at a time with that line. I tend to keep my dogs as few as possible in number as I can.

when I do breedings i just use store animals if i am not able to buy a lined horse or dog to go with them (: 

I always pair up with stores. I only keep two pairs per account period. One is always lined and one is always store.

Link Tree

I pair with stores also!

Thank you guys! I'll buy store mares for my three lined stallions, now that I realize that just about everyone does it! haha 

I always work in stores when I have to.

if I have extra referral/achievement points I may do a gender change.

I tend to pair with stores for a few generations.  And then, when I get bored, my accounts explode with animals and I have a ton to chose from the subsequent generations.

It doesn't break the lines - my generations go off of the oldest in the pair - hence why the glam ones are generation 16 now, going on 17!