Please, if you don't have actual experience, don't respond to this question..

Of all the different breeds of draft horses, which are normally the calmest?

I am thinking of breeding one of my Halflinger mares and want to use a horse who will not add any spunk, so to speak.. these horses are docile but have a lot of git up and go.. I would prefer to use a black stud, so as to get a team of bays ( I have always wanted a team of bays) I know of one person who used Belgians to cross them, but they had more life than either parent... maybe it's a pipe dream?

Sure wish you could still find the old chunk style horses.. 15 hands, 1200 to 1400 pounds... or so

In my experience, the calmest drafts that were bred for field work from the start are the Suffolk Punch, now known here as the American Suffolk. they are also very easy keepers and haven't really changed much over the years. They are all chestnut and throw chestnuts so no bays out of that cross. My Agatha was 15.3 and about 1600 pounds. Powerful!

I would not use the Belgian for what you want. I agree that other than another halflinger, the suffolk is the next best choice.

Nora, I would add the Brabant, the Ardennais and the Noriker. The latter also known as Oberlander or Southern German Coldblood. But then, among all the breeds there are always individuals which stick out in either way , calm or excitable.

I have found that not all haflingers are as calm as what people think.

My first draft cross was a 14 hand QH mare to a Belgian stud. The two belgian studs on our farm when I was growing up (dad drove them as a team farming) were very calm and easy going so like all breeds, doesn't matter if we are talking dogs, hogs, cattle or horses, specific bloodlines or families are calmer than others.
When we were raising and selling draft ponies on our farm, our stud was a haflinger/percheron cross and calm as the day was long. So specifically I would look for a horse that is doing what you want and then breed to it.

I don't wish to spoil your hopes, but if you want a team of bays, they best way to get them is to buy them. Breeding in hopes of getting a particular color is usually a disappointment unless you are going for a color that is dominant to a particular breed. Since you are not planning to breed for a large horse, why don't you consider a quarter horse that carries the King, Poco Bueno, or Old Sorrel bloodlines. They are usually very calm and are of a useable size.

I agree with Vince. The haflingers I've been around have been a lot hotter than the Belgians I've been around. An acquaintance has a Belgian/haflinger mare that is just a super horse. Until she got sweenied at the Amish that is.

I would definitely look at a Fjord/Halflinger cross.

Often you will end up with buckskins though, not bays.

I don't really know anything other than Haflingers but I have found some are flightier than others. In general I have found the slimmer (less drafty looking) are a little more high strung. The draftier ones have been calmer for me, all of them seem to calm down into their work no matter how they act in the morning of the first day back to work. Ours only work 2 to 3 times a week, I am impressed how well they work given how little of their life is actually spent working. They stand well, tie well and tolerate racket behind them well. If they get spooked by something they seem to calm down and get over it, I have never had to stop working just because they were spooked by a piece of equipment, they just got used to it. This is just what I know from our horses, I can’t speak about the breed any more than that.

There are hotter strains to be found in any breed of horse. Suffolks seem to have somehow managed to avoid the "hottening-up" that accompanies a breed when it goes into the arena to trot on the rail. Truly bred for the furrow.

I've had every kind of Draft imaginable. Love the Haflingers so much I've kept one longer than anything I've ever had. They are easily taught and comfortable to be around. Would love to mate one to a black Percheron and get some bays but I'm afraid of size at birth.

This is a sorta silly question as there is WAY MORE difference within a breed than between breeds.

Mooney if you go Haflinger stud to Perchron mare it should be ok.

Good ones can come right out of the furrow and trot on the rail and go right back to furrow. Every heavy breed has the capability fo performing any task, training, conditioning and the driver has alot to do with what these great breeds can do. Most horse never get a chance to show their true potential.

Mares tend to self-regulate the size of their foals to where they are not too large to handle birthing without problems .. unlike cattle, where calving ease is a much greater factor for consideration.

Live cover of a small mare by a large stallion can be awkward, or prohibitive sometimes, but this can be overcome by artificial insemination.

I've had 100% "success" getting bay foals out of bay T-breds bred to both grey and black Percheron stallions that way, with no troubles foaling. It's a numbers game in many ways to get a good team, or even one good single horse, you have to remember. If I wanted a team like you're craving, I'd be scheming to take at least 3-4 suitable mares to a breeding farm that uses AI, if distance isn't a problem. That will save money, possibly, in lieu of having to pay a vet to inseminate your mares with shipped chilled or frozen semen.

It's a process, too much of one for many, probably, but for what it's worth, it works. :-)

"Good ones" can both show and work, but if people who breed and sell horses don't also work those horses, they can't select for the traits desirable in a work horse. The logger or farmer isn't going to pay show horse prices for a working team. If work-horse characteristics are to remain available in the bloodlines, they have to be tested for. Like bone and feet, once you breed out "brains", you can't get them back.

I think would be suprised what good broke and sound horses are going for. Good farm and/or logging horses are bringing way more than show horses

Dris is right--the days of good CHEAP work teams are over for awhile. If the farmer or logger doesn't want to pay market prices for these horses, they're going to have to go without. Horses were quite a bit higher at the spring sales, and honestly, compared to the rate of inflation on everything else, they aren't high enough yet. I'll probably catch hell for that comment, but why should the producer raise them at a loss so everyone else can have cheap horses??

Thanks all for your comments... all good ones... as suggested, I probably should just look for a bay team, only problem with that is finding two that are full siblings.. and yes, I know they don't have to be but in my experience it makes a huge difference.. I have a young man with a QH stallion that is gray and is interested in getting some half blood crosses.. may have to just take him up on the deal and tell him I get the bays! I have 3 mares, so he'd get two and I'd get one and then breed he one who had a bay to the same stallion the next year... I mostly just use mine in the winter for feeding and a bit in the spring for fencing... thanks again!