The cost of Horses

[Teddy Lancaster <Teddy@runningbear.com>]

Hey, I wouldn't have a farm to pay for, or a truck and trailer, or liability
insurance, or for lawnmovers/tractors, for help to get, load and unload hay,
or for building a barn, or for the maintenance on it, or for insuring it
(not to mention the truck and trailer), or for the water (yes I have a
spring, but when it goes dry, I have to pay for city water), or for
utilities on the barn, the hot water heater, lights, heaters.  I would not
have to go out morning and evening in all kinds of weather to take care of
these animals.

Hey, the more I write, the more I think I could do SOMETHING else (far more
profitable) than raise and ride horses!!!

Teddy

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