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Re: [RC] Arabian Stud Fees are just too high - Chris PausAmy, my horse's stud fee is under $1,000 and includes a $100 discount for endurance and CTR riders, but I can never go down to $150. In my neighborhood, there is a QH-Paint breeder who has two stallions he stands at $150 and $250 respectively. He gets a lot more business than I do, just about every mare in the county with uterus has been there. And I've seen a lot of crappy, bad legged foals on the ground because of these low stud fees.
My hay supplier wanted to breed a mare to my stallion. My regular fee is $600. I offered to swap it out in hay for him, not even do cash. His wife put the kabosh on that. Her exact words, 'We don't have a mare here worth $600."
I was GLAD the deal fell through. If the mare isn't worth the money to spend for a decent stallion, then I don't want her foals representing my horse! The stallion is only part of the equation... the mare has a whole lot to do with how that foal will turn out! So I don't want to breed Szybki to just any old mare.
I think Betty has explained the stud fees. Mine are pretty low because my horse doesn't have an endurance record or proven endurance offspring, so I have to look at this, even at his advanced age, as "introductory" into the market.
Beyond that, it costs, as she said, to advertise them, keep up their registration paperwork if they are nominated for anything, buy a semen shipping license, etc. There's their feed, farrier care and vet care, and the extra time a person spends in dealing with a stallion versus other horses. Not to mention the way a farm owner's insurance sky rockets as soon as you have a stallion on the premises! And one well placed kick from a mare and my horse's career as a breeding stallion could be over.
Stallion owners take many big risks.. financial, emotional, and physical. No matter how well behaved a stallion is, it's still an inherent danger to hand breed horses or work with one at the breeding dummy.
If someone out there can truly stand a quality stallion for $150 and produce great foals time after time, then more power to them. But the economics just aren't there. You'd have to breed your boy to every mare that walks by just to pay his upkeep at that price, and the result is what I've seen around here... a lot of mediocre babies languishing in back yards where nobody does anything with them.
chris
Ridecamp Guest <guest-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Please Reply to: Amy Claiborne amyc@xxxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Kansas State Motto: Ad Astra Per Aspera.. to the stars through difficult.... BayRab Acres Paola KS 913-731-5947 http://pages.prodigy.net/paus
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