Re: RC: Re: Re: Horses wanted

[Lif Strand <fasterhorses@gilanet.com>]

Hey Steph.  Didn't you have to increase your mare's feed even a little
bit when she was in foal and nursing?  That's a bit extra.  Gotta add
that in to the costs of a foal.

We also own the mares and the stallion, and figure that it might
normally cost around $300 to get the foal *on the ground* - mare shots,
extra food @ up to $40 additional per month, depending on how far along
the mare is.  HOWEVER, if you sell the foal the moment it's born for $3
- 400, you haven't made a profit, have you?  Realistically, most people
don't sell foals till they're weaned, so lets add on registration if
it's a paperable horse, and the foal shots, feeding the foal - and the
mare (because you wont' be riding her all that much, certainly not
racing her, till the foal's weaned) maybe a few trims, etc. etc.  We'll
throw in the training and board, if any, for free because maybe we can
keep the mare and foal on our property and do the training ourselves.
Hey, isn't that a wonderful thought - to make a profit we have to value
the training at $0.  Anyway, now we're looking at maybe $1000 in costs
by the time the foal is 6 months old - and this is in our area where
feed costs aren't all that bad -  so if we sell it for $1000, we're
selling it for maybe $1.50/lb and still not making any money.

Don't see how you got away with only spending $600 on your foal by
weaning time if you already had $450 in vet costs when it was a day
old... but as you said, it depends on your situation.  The rest of us
(and probably an extremely high percentage of us) get to the point where
a horse can be started out under saddle and have $2-3000 in it already.
Where is the possibility for profit in this by selling to endurance
riders?  Does anyone *not* understand why people would rather try to
breed for and sell to a show home instead?   Bah!  I don't need to
convince myself we're right in getting out of the business!  Lif

--
                                     ____________
Lif & Paul Strand   STRAND ENTERPRISES   http://www.fasterhorses.com
           Arabian Horses for Distance Riding
         Internet Research * WebArt * Fine Art
                     Quemado, NM  USA



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