Do you insure your foals?

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springfallstud

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Do you insure your foals? and how far would you go money wise for one that wasnt insured but needed major surgery with not a great chance of a competitive future afterwards?
 
I do from 30 days onwards but only for death so no vet cover at all (the cost of from birth is too prohibitive for me). In response to the second, I'm too realistic I'm afraid and if it wasn't going to recover completely to lead a sound and healthy life then I would pull the plug before it went as far as surgery. There are enough sound horses out there, why raise something that would never be more than a field ornament and probably have a financial burden with it? If it was something that just needed time/corrective shoeing, that is a different matter entirely and I would pull all the stops out for that. Does that sound contrary?!
 
We dont have all our foals insured. This year I insured all my foals that were heading away from the stud with their dams for insemination and I included vet fees in the premium. The ones at home were not insured.

I am looking at insuring the foals for a minimum price and have not made up my mind to include vet fees or not. If I did not have vet fees and a foal needed major surgery with no great future then I would PTS without hesitation.

For instance this year, our foal, Sugababe got a kick in the head from her mum at 21 days old, this resulted in an operation to remove the eye, followed by 10 days hospitalisation and then intensive care back at the stud afterwards (who also happen to be vets). She then ended up with a fracture to her cranium with a big lump on her forehead, so had to have this closely monitored.

She was under 30 days and was not insured, she was our responsibility, so we had to make the call for treatment. Because she was a filly we went ahead with all the treatment. If she had been a colt then we would have PTS straight away, no question at all.

We can breed with a filly but a colt/gelding would have just been a complete financial loss, regardless of how hard that sounds.
 
If say the filly could never pass a grading with her stud book due to the condition then she wouldnt make much of a breeding mare either i guess, even if her pedigree was good?
 
I insure them for death and public liability but not for vets fee.
I learned the hard way with regard to how far to go to save them. My first foal went down with pneumonia at 6 weeks. The vet came out too many times to remember and I administered drugs to her 3 times a day. The day after she was given the all clear, she lost control of her hindquarters. She went to a specialist clinic where it was discovered she had a tumour, caused by the pneumonia, blocking the spinal cord. Anyway, the vet was sure he could save her, so carried out numerous treatments including punturing the tumour. After 3 weeks she still hadn't made a positive step towards recovery, so I decided to have her put to sleep. So I ended up with a huge vet bill and no foal!
I don't regret trying to save her but I have learned that I would not try again. I would now try to be less emotional and more realistic if I found myself in a similar situation.
 
Tough one. Our filly Sugababe will be eligible for grading as the eye is the result of an injury and not through being born with it, so she will "hopefully" be fine to breed with, and she has an exceptional pedigree, which was why she had previously been sold within Germany before the accident.

Without knowing the said condition its hard to say. Would I put a foal to sleep just because it could not grade......perhaps not, as that is not the be all and end all, especially if she has an exceptional pedigree with a proven mareline. I would have to know whether foaling would be an issue in later life with the condition she has, would it cause any problems etc. If the answers to these questions were "yes" it could be problomatic then I would PTS, unless you can afford to keep a horse as a pet, or feel she could be used as a nanny for other youngsters later on.
 
Mine are insured for death and vets fees up to £5k. I have public liability on my BHS membership, and those are, IMHO, the most important things.

They are not insured for their full value, unless they have been sold but are not weaned yet, in which case they are insured for the price that they were sold for.
 
I insured Tilly for the amount i paid for her from 30 days old for death and vets fees. The stud i bought her from recommended this and although it was very expensive to insure her, it would have been worth it, if god forbid anything had happened to her.
 
We had to have a mortality certificate for Tilly in order to insure her as well. When we bought Evie at 6 months, we decided to wait until her first birthday to insure her so we didn't have to go through the rigmarole of the Mortality vet check. I suppose its just the insurances way of covering their own backs??
 
Mine was insured (in theory) even before she was born as I took out a foaling extension to the mare's insurance. That lasted until the foal was 30 days old then I insured her in her own right. Having lost a youngster at 2 following a kick in the field I am now mildly paranoid. At one time I wouldn't have been so worried but now realising how terminal something "simple" can be, I would never not have them fully insured as I just could not afford lots of treatment.
 
I insure mine from 30 days for a low value, but for public liability and 5k vets fees.
The company I use do ask for a mortality certificate (2 stage vetting) but even factoring this in to the cost of the premium, if you keep the value of the horse down the premium isn't too expensive (in my opinion) and you have peace of mind knowing that the unknown (ie vets fees or liability claims) are covered.
 
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