"You should be prepared to pay more"

[Jambarissa]

Seeing this a lot on SM and forums. People saying it costs a lot to make hay or breed a foal or train as a physio so we should be prepared to pay more.

To me (and via economics theory) a product is worth what someone will pay, if its rare then demand outstrips supply and people are prepared to pay more and vice versa.

There is an issue that if we aren't willing to pay what something costs to produce then the producer will stop making it and it may not be available in future. This shouldn't happen though, a few will stop therefore the product becomes scarcer and so the value goes back up and it becomes profitable again.

Is anyone else getting this in their feeds? I've read it 3 times today already. I wonder if it does make a difference? I don't go to the cheapest hay supplier I support my usual hay supplier so it already happens , but if he was twice the price of the other I might need to rethink.

 

[Jambarissa]

Actually this reminds me of being a kid, my mum and gran always went to the same butcher and baker then the supermarkets became a lot cheaper and they'd still support their usual businesses for a while but it didn't last forever.

Sad but inevitable, and now if you want decent meat or bread you need to go 3 villages over

 

[Widgeon]

I think I know what you're getting at. Part of me thinks that perhaps what we need is more hardy cobs bred out on a moor, etc. Do we really need the sort of horses that require AI, multiple scans, special feed, 24 hour monitoring etc to get a healthy foal on the ground? I know I don't. Welsh and Exmoor ponies seem to manage okay with far less intervention than that.

And I do realise that sometimes things go horribly and fatally wrong for those ponies, but then mares and foals are also lost at amazingly well equipped studs - it's just a much more expensive loss.

That sounds extremely harsh but it's just a half formed thought I've been musing on for a while, I'm not advocating everyone chucking their breeding stock out in a field and leaving them to it.

 

[blitznbobs]

yes this is economics but, what happens is the thing becomes elite again… to get a quality animal on the ground costs at least 5k ( if the mare takes first time which is by no means a certainty) then to keep for 3 years you need to either invest in land or pay livery… so As the market shrinks as lots of producers fall by the way side, only the wealthy remain… so if you want to keep the market broad then yes paying what an animal costs to produce is essential otherwise, you are right the market shrinks rapidly and horses no longer become available to the masses… a market where something costs more than some one is prepared to pay quickly collapses

 

[Jambarissa]

All my horses except the racehorse will have been bred by having a stallion running with mares. I had no idea how much it cost to put a sport horse foal on the ground.

 

[blitznbobs]

I think I know what you're getting at. Part of me thinks that perhaps what we need is more hardy cobs bred out on a moor, etc. Do we really need the sort of horses that require AI, multiple scans, special feed, 24 hour monitoring etc to get a healthy foal on the ground? I know I don't. Welsh and Exmoor ponies seem to manage okay with far less intervention than that.

And I do realise that sometimes things go horribly and fatally wrong for those ponies, but then mares and foals are also lost at amazingly well equipped studs - it's just a much more expensive loss.

That sounds extremely harsh but it's just a half formed thought I've been musing on for a while, I'm not advocating everyone chucking their breeding stock out in a field and leaving them to it.

The problem with the chuck it out and leave it approach is ethics… I’m sure the rspca would get very interEstes in a stud where mares were dying on the moors because it was cheaper than keeping an eye on them and watching their foaling… I’m sure it happens but i can see the daily Mail headlines now

 

[Widgeon]

The problem with the chuck it out and leave it approach is ethics… I’m sure the rspca would get very interEstes in a stud where mares were dying on the moors because it was cheaper than keeping an eye on them and watching their foaling… I’m sure it happens but i can see the daily Mail headlines now

Yes absolutely, which is why I wouldn't advocate it. But I'm sure there must be a compromise that can be reached, at least for hardier types of horses. It sounds like @Jambarissa has a setup similar to what I was mulling over.

 

[blitznbobs]

All my horses except the racehorse will have been bred by having a stallion running with mares. I had no idea how much it cost to put a sport horse foal on the ground.

Cheap as you can

stud fee between 600 to 3k

ai ( if you have all the time in the world to drive your mare back and forward and live near a repro vet) between 300 and 500 per cycle more if call outs or livery involved (my last foal worked out 1200 per cycle in the end with sedation, livery and or call outs)

decent brood mare - anywhere 8k up

usual farrier costs/dental/ worm etc

foaling someone willing to sit up for nights on end usually if well organised 2 to 3 nights at minimum wage about 500 quid - most owners don’t value time though so over look this cost

vaccinations 300 to 500

vets Fees (everything gone very smoothly) 250

obviously livery or land for mare to live on…

and things rarely go that smoothly.

 

[bouncing_ball]

I think many people need to accept paying more to keep horses in a species appropriate environment. Where there is less land or land has poor drainage, it either requires infrastructure to provide year round turnout or keeping horses further out.

 

[Glitter's fun]

Bear in mind I'm as old as a boat and cantankerous with it.

We don't need to pay more in total; we need to change our priorities.

Seems to me that people are more helpless and less skilled than they were. The cheap times have led to a general attitude of buying ready-made off the peg and every last little thing needs an 'expert' bringing in, when learning a bit of basic horsemanship would have covered it.*
Also people expect more. Owning sports horses that need stabling and rugs used to be the preserve of the rich. So did having a menage or your own transport. We didn't all live in a shoe box in't middle o't' road as per Monty Python but we learned to ride in fields, made our own feed, hacked to shows, hacked to the farrier's forge - he didn't come to us, hacked everywhere -hence our ponies weren't fat ---so we didn't need to be sold special low cal food for them or pay for them to be somewhere with a walker.
And edited to add you don't need to me tell you not to throw away all your matchy matchy because it's last year's colour, do you?

* Some experts are really that, and worth their weight in gold. If you need a vet, a farrier, or a saddler then you should give them your last penny - they are worth it.

 

[Jambarissa]

There have been a handful of horses bred on my yard

2 dales, a fell, a gypsy cob all taken to a stallion then foaled in the field always on their own because mares are sneaky! I think they all got the vet out for a health check straight after. Minimal cost there really.

There was one lovely sport horse, had ai and regular vet checks and foaled in the stable with vet present. I had assumed this was closer to the reality for competition horses but it sounds not!

 

[cauda equina]

If equine reproduction needed all that human intervention there wouldn't be so many BOGOFs

Between AI/ET at one end of the scale and 'mares dying on the moors' at the other there has to be a happy medium; one of mine was bred at a fairly local stud where the stallion runs with the mares and they foal in the field

 

[J&S]

I think this situation must happen with every generation. It costs more to do pretty well everything now than it did say 20 - 30 years ago. But, wages are higher now, people eat out more, spend more on clothes etc etc, never mind the horse costs! When my partner or I exclaim to his daughter about the cost of say, babysitting, motor cars , plumbers, what ever, she will say, "Well, that is just what you have to pay for it now!"
The trick is to find the few bargains available in life!!

 

[maya2008]

BOGOF foal with minimal input. Tiny (currently 11.1hh at 2yo), foaled without intervention. She’ll be worth £700 at 3yo. I’ll have spent plenty more. Can you keep a pony for £233 a year? I can’t!

I have one for sale at the moment (I really could do without 5 kids’ ponies through next winter). If she doesn’t sell we’ll keep her one last winter and my son will take her out for a first experience at BSJA. She’s amazing, no way could I buy what she is for the price some people want to pay. Might as well keep her a bit longer and enjoy the pony she is!

The days of renting a field for £60 per acre per year are fading away as the older generation dies and land is sold for what it’s now worth. No one wants to pay £12,000 an acre and then let it out for £60 a year. Just no one. I had someone wanting to let my field for that price. Had to explain that at that price, I would be better served selling it and putting the money into my mortgage!!!

With cost of living rises, people are also less able to subsidise someone else’s hobby. We never pay much, but I buy feral or ‘with issues’ and put the work in.

 

[Kaylum]

Foaling in the field was standard practice for us with Irish Draughts. Your experienced stud staff can save you so much money from covering to birth. People don't understand why twins are rare.

 

[Caol Ila]

The problem with the chuck it out and leave it approach is ethics… I’m sure the rspca would get very interEstes in a stud where mares were dying on the moors because it was cheaper than keeping an eye on them and watching their foaling… I’m sure it happens but i can see the daily Mail headlines now

Both of mine are the result of the 'chuck it out and leave it' approach. There were definitely some ethical questions to be had in both cases because the stock weren't being managed and were breeding pretty indiscriminately. My mare and then later, her younger sister, wound up in foal to their half brother (unbeknownst to me until foal was almost on the ground), giving birth before they turned 3, which was really not ideal considering it's a stud farm and not a bunch of ponies running wild on the moor. Had I not bought my horse, she would have no doubt been pregnant the following year as well. And the one after that. My horse was cheap for what she is, though, so there's that. She also foaled down without any intervention.

Having them grow up in natural herds can be really nice for them, helping with cognitive and social skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives. But you have to manage it a bit or you'll be overrun with millions of f*cking horses. A friend of mine in the US was recently involved in a huge ASPCA seizure of a Friesian stud farm that looked like it had been sort of reputable at one point, but they'd let their horses breed unfettered and given up at any kind of attempt at management or care. Worming, foot trimming, etc. There were over 100 horses at the farm. The land could not sustain the horses, and the pictures my friend posted showed horses with a body condition score of 1 and 2.

Yeah, don't do that.

 

[cauda equina]

Well yes, separating the colts from the mares and fillies would seem obvious really

 

[Ample Prosecco]

The other aspect to this is we have lost breeders and producers of nice normal allrounders because they can't make money out of it. So to get those horses, at ess than a realisrtivc cost-to-produce price, you then have to rely on BOGOFs, bin-end dealers/breeders or people who are selling on because they have run into issues.

So yes - economics - but if you DON:T value those producers of nice horses then you will in the end lose quality.

There is a lovely stud of Welsh horses. My friend went to choose one of his. Born in a herd, running free. But all pure-bred, vet checked, healthy. Vacced and socialised. That was 5k at 3yo and worth every penny.

 

[millikins]

The New Forest breeders approached this issue fairly successfully I think. There were all those tragic stories of colt foals going for a tenner at sales straight to be lion food. So they reduced the stock available by limiting the number of stallions turned out and the time they were out simultaneously improving the quality of the stock and reducing the numbers thus increasing the price.

 

[cobgoblin]

Fast forward 20yrs and most of these concerns will probably be irrelevant, as rising prices and availability of livery force most horse owners out.

 

[FlyingCircus]

Fast forward 20yrs and most of these concerns will probably be irrelevant, as rising prices and availability of livery force most horse owners out.

This is exactly what I'm trying to safeguard against by buying some land. I'd hate to be at the whim of a livery yard which won't/isn't able to cater to my horses needs.

As for prices...I do think some people are delusional. I could probably build a house given enough time, but that would cost WAY more than standard and be of poor quality because I don't know what I'm doing...On the same basis, why do people who breed rubbish think that just because it cost XYZ to get to that stage means it is worth that.

 

[maya2008]

This is exactly what I'm trying to safeguard against by buying some land. I'd hate to be at the whim of a livery yard which won't/isn't able to cater to my horses needs.

As for prices...I do think some people are delusional. I could probably build a house given enough time, but that would cost WAY more than standard and be of poor quality because I don't know what I'm doing...On the same basis, why do people who breed rubbish think that just because it cost XYZ to get to that stage means it is worth that.

What is ‘rubbish’? Unrecorded breeding? Not perfect conformation? Feral?

Poor quality is the bricks. Building it is skill. Sadly, neither are valued in the horse world.

Skills: Everyone wants a slowly and correctly produced horse/pony with good manners and perfect schooling. No one wants to pay for the hours of skilled training it takes to produce that.

Bricks: Our four small ponies were mostly a similar price, despite vast differences in breeding. I have the fancy bred pure Welsh A who lived on a yard all her life, the purebred who grew up feral but has conformation the vet remarked on as superb, the unreg Welsh cross that looks (and moves) like his sire was a sports pony and the Heinz 57 who came on a lorry from Ireland underweight and pregnant and I am pretty sure has a big chunk of Shetland in her somewhere. Same price within a couple of hundred. The one with the fancy breeding was originally advertised for a much higher price, but no one will pay that in today’s world, so she ended up dropping it and dropping it. We got a fancy pony for a song, and she is so good she’s never been out of the ribbons since we started taking her out to shows. To be fair though, the ‘rubbish’ breeding two have also turned into amazing ponies. One is endlessly obedient, jumps with ease, goes on the bit for fun. The other is a safe, confidence giving first ridden.

Years ago my ‘rubbish’ TB with locking stifles became my horse of a lifetime. Turned her hoof to whatever I wanted to do (successfully) then looked after the young ones in her old age. Even my little NF with her ‘not so athletic’ build won her first dressage test. Training and temperament are everything, so long as the conformation is appropriate for the job you ask them to do, they’re fine.

If you want a higher level athlete, that should be extra on top of what it would cost for an ‘ordinary’ horse. That shouldn’t be the baseline.

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Going with Bricks and Skill analogy - BOGOFS are cheap/free bricks than can be very weird mixes. Some may be great. (My Max was out of a fell pony mare who a very valuable TB stallion got in with by mistake. He was amazing). But many are not. They have poor conformation to begin with and sub-optimal development after that. But you can make a lot out of a mostly okish horses or pony with skill. But that is where value is simply not recognised! Good breeders and producers do not just get healthy, temperamentally sound animals on the ground, they socialise, educate and eventually train them. Done well it is many hundered of hours of skilled work. Who is willing to pay for that these days?

Bin end dealers, BOGOFS born unexpectedly to people with no experience in producing youngstock, and people who are selling on after they have run into issues e=generally do not put decent quality training onto those 'cheap' horses. When I come to sell Felix he will probably be priced the same as any other 3 YO - and a lot less than he is 'worth'. But how to put a price on a youngster's start in life (physically and psychologically), their strength, sure-footedness and resilience, their attitude to work, their willingness and confidence, their view of humans and their early skills.

 

[millitiger]

The biggest issues is definitely going to be lack of livery, at current cost levels.
Land is becoming more and more sought after (valuable) and making pocket money each week as a livery yard is not sustainable when developers are knocking with a seemingly blank cheque.

Hence I'm now mortgaged up to the hilt but have my own (and Barclays bank!) 7 acres with my house.

 

[sbloom]

All my horses except the racehorse will have been bred by having a stallion running with mares. I had no idea how much it cost to put a sport horse foal on the ground.

Interestingly, as an aside, I've seen someone very exorienced and well respected argue that this approach would breed better foal , in terms of natural things like long term soundness, not flashy movement, if we did this. More swimmers giving better odds of a good'un getting through apparently!

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

Interestingly, as an aside, I've seen someone very exorienced and well respected argue that this approach would breed better foal , in terms of natural things like long term soundness, not flashy movement, if we did this. More swimmers giving better odds of a good'un getting through apparently!

I do feel for the racehorses they are so regimented to make sure it is all done properly and the right stallion and mare are used and there's no AI involved etc

 

[Lexi 123]

I hate to say this I have heard breeders rave about how good breeding their foals are how much they’re worth. Few years on all these horses are at bin end dealers and they just happy hackers because breeders don’t see the horses in front of them the horses end up suffering as a result . The breeder just looking at the cost of Getting them on the ground inside of a good home.

 

[Kaylum]

All our ridden stock were ridden out in traffic and had been taken out in the box before being sold. It took a lot of time but this was reputation and buyers knew what they could expect. It takes time and money but also it was rewarding and there was a great deal of pride involved.

 

[silv]

Bear in mind I'm as old as a boat and cantankerous with it.

We don't need to pay more in total; we need to change our priorities.

Seems to me that people are more helpless and less skilled than they were. The cheap times have led to a general attitude of buying ready-made off the peg and every last little thing needs an 'expert' bringing in, when learning a bit of basic horsemanship would have covered it.*
Also people expect more. Owning sports horses that need stabling and rugs used to be the preserve of the rich. So did having a menage or your own transport. We didn't all live in a shoe box in't middle o't' road as per Monty Python but we learned to ride in fields, made our own feed, hacked to shows, hacked to the farrier's forge - he didn't come to us, hacked everywhere -hence our ponies weren't fat ---so we didn't need to be sold special low cal food for them or pay for them to be somewhere with a walker.
And edited to add you don't need to me tell you not to throw away all your matchy matchy because it's last year's colour, do you?

* Some experts are really that, and worth their weight in gold. If you need a vet, a farrier, or a saddler then you should give them your last penny - they are worth it.

Great post, I couldn’t agree more.

 

[SO1]

I am seeing these posts on Facebook and I am wondering if people are struggling to sell for the prices advertised.

I think the cost of breeding bares very little on the price of the equine unless you are looking at top sports horses it is very much supply and demand. For example the cost of breeding and keeping a connemara youngster is probably not much more than any other large native or cob but the price is much higher as people value them more as competion ponies.

I have just spent 8.5k on a 13.2 5 yr old new forest which would have been unheard of 3 or 4 years ago but the breed has become more popular and he has been nicely started and lovely nature.