Breeding Kiger Horses

Herd Raised

All our Kiger foals are raised in a balanced herd environment, with opportunities to navigate a variety of social and environmental variations. The variations are tailored to give grounding social anchors while learning how to explore their world. We also feed for athletes, so Platinum Performance is a key nutrition staple along with organic Modesto Milling grain. Our aim is to raise curious foals that want to engage and explore new scenarios when appropriate for each individual. So timid foals get placed in social relationships that encourage confidence. Conversely, foals that are too bold, are set up with firm, but fair adults so they develop into solid citizens. Eventually, they all live in a larger group with additional aunties.

Pregnant Kigers and foals romping in a sunset pasture with trees and barns in the background

Multigenerational herd of Kiger Mustangs in a tree-lined grass pasture approaching a palomino on the other side of a fence

Fillies

Our Fillies, after weaning, do get to experience the “aunty” role for the foals born the year after them. Our goal is to have well socialized horses and try to mimic some of the wild Kiger experience, where we can, to help retain qualities that helped these horses get recognized in the first place.

Colts

Once weaned, our boys get to make up a boy band with older gelding(s) supervision to cultivate good play and boundaries that make training them much easier later on. We want them to build good bone density through their rough housing and races across the pasture while jumping the irrigation ridges. The older supervision helps the younger colts not get too big for their britches when the hormones hit, which can occur if raised in less social settings.

Young red dun and grulla Kiger Mustang racing across a grass pasture along a vineyard, grulla leading

Adult and foal grulla Kiger Mustangs move along a grass pasture fenceline

Red dun Kiger Mustang foal using baby talk to approach the rear of an older Kiger in a pasture herd

Grulla Kiger Mustangs walking toward a fence in a grass pasture

Our Goal

Our program is guided by several principles:

Respect for the breed’s wild origins.
Commitment to sound, saddle-horse conformation.
Development of horses with great minds.
Focus on Spanish and Iberian traits

We are breeding for timeless horses. Many people are drawn to the Kiger breed for the Spanish traits and natural hardiness from thriving in the wild. As a breeder, it is a difficult balance between genetic diversity and maintaining the breed’s original type with such a small gene pool. We often work with other breeders to help create the next generation of old bloodlines that are about to disappear. Color is easy to add in later but conformation and great minds are difficult to fix, so we focus on the latter two in our current bloodlines.

Every foal born here represents years of careful selection, stewardship, and dedication to a breed we believe in deeply.