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Re: [RC] The Gelding Project - MN - Maryanne GabbaniI currently have three yearlings in the nursery pen...three yearlings that I did not plan for.? An ex-employee of mine came to me about 18 months ago and announced proudly that I was going to have three free horses! When I just looked at him like he'd grown an extra head he was confused, being a typical male Egyptian farmer who had a pathological fear of a hole unfilled, so I sat him down to do the math. I pointed out that the absolute minimum keeping costs for these horses was about 500 LE per month, excluding farrier and vet. That meant that one of them would be costing me 6 thou LE a year for four years until he/she was ready to train for saddle work, and that our current requirements for our working hourses was for an additional 3 years of work under saddle with staff until they were about seven years old so in total the costs were a minimum of 42 thou LE for the horse BEFORE it ever earned a penny for the farm. His jaw dropped. It dropped even further when I informed him that if he ever did anything stupid like this again, he would be paying these costs out of his salary. Now to get US prices here, you can divide all these numbers by 5 to make it simple, so my 7 yr olds would have had a minimum 8 thou USD investment.? Around here, you can buy stamped pedigree Arabs for that kind of money. The few horses I've actually bought have been rescues for about 3 thou LE (600$) and the most I've ever paid was 9 thou LE for a school master who made me laugh and was worth every penny...wouldn't consider selling him for even 50 thou LE now.
Of my three yearlings, one filly has a mysterious thyroid condition that means that she will be on medication all her life at about an additional 300 LE a month. One colt broke his leg at one month and now has a titanium screw in it. He's 100% sound and will be a fabulous horse, but his costs went up 15 thou LE with that operation. And one colt, has so far decided to be nice and not do anything expensive.? Both were gelded at a year. Their father was an almost 3 year old that I was buying from a neighbour for 3.5 thou LE and the idiot groom decided to let him be a father while I was waiting for the vet (who was traveling at the time) to come out to cut him. No stallions here anymore. I just turned 60 this spring and have no interest in young horses now. I have 20 lovely horses ranging in ages from a year to over 30 and even with attrition the youngsters I have will be enough for my work for as long as I live....unless I'm still running around here driving people crazy at 90. I really don't want to leave a huge equine headache for my anthropologist daughter who will own the farm when I go, so I'm watching the intake of animals here. I owe her that. Maryanne Stroud Gabbani msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx Egypt Face to Face www.alsorat.com Weblogs: Living In Egypt miloflamingo.blogspot.com Cairo/Giza Daily Photo cairogizadailyphoto.blogspot.com Turn Right At The Sarcophagus haramlik.blogspot.com Da Moose Is Loose (a blog for kids) mstroud.blogspot.com Photos of Egypt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/livinginegypt/ On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 6:10 AM, Ranelle Rubin <raneller@xxxxxxx> wrote:
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