Re: RC: Re: Re: Horses wanted

[Maureen Mathisen <blueoak@snowcrest.net>]

Lif--, 

AND that's NOT counting YOUR work(or what you have to pay for any help
you need--especially at foaling.)  When I said "you can't even buy a
baby for THAT(500-700) it was NOT meant to be taken literally, but was
said out of SHOCK when I read that post.  ANd--endurance people rarely
buy a BABY--  so they are not counting that each year the cost is going
up over $800 for continuing shoeing, worming, shots, and training(if you
do it yourself, and God help you if you have to send it out to be
started!)

I also raise Connemara ponies and own the stallion.  This helps some. 
Also, Connemara people more often than Arab people, WILL buy babies and
raise them themselves. That helps tremendously!AND you don't have to
pray your "luck" will hold and nothing awful will happen to the baby
before it is old enough to sell.(A foal is cute, but an" accident
waiting to happen" no matter HOW careful you are!)

I think it is so sad that breeders of endurance lines can't get a decent
price for the carefully raised horses that were bred for the sport!

Maureen

Lif Strand wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
> Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=