I’m curious and would love to hear what others are paying this year to get their mare/s in foal. What did it cost for those of you that have the facility and capabilities to do it yourself and from those of us who had to have the vet do everything.
Vet fees this year to get my mare in foal were about $1200, which was super reasonable for my mare staying there for a few weeks, pinching a twin, and then having to rebreed because we lost both when we pinched the one.
Last year I used a different facility and ended up at around $1400 (my mare stayed from about a week before insemination to heartbeat check)
I breed live cover TBs, but we had to palp the mare 3x @ $104.13 before breeding. Then sucromate x2 @ $153 each. Then the shed charged me $80 for tranq (side note - has ANY TB breeder ever seen that before?! Imo it’s a cost of doing business for the stallion owner.)
So to get the mare pregnant we were at $490. We do normal vaccines & checks after pregnancy (14 DIF, 16 DIF, etc). We do not do regumate or thyroid meds unless indicated. Will probably be at $1k by the time she foals.
Fungi, that seems rather reasonable. Did they check your mare for a follicle and do other vet work most days while she was at the vet’s facility?
Well, for the older (22) mare I just bought this spring, I managed to luck up and get her in foal on one cycle, live cover, and am only out - so far - $300 total for a dose of Lutalyse, a shot of Sucromate, and the 13-day ultrasound. But, at her age and given the insane number of uterine cysts she has, I’m not counting on her staying pregnant just yet.
For the other one…about $1k for one breeding cycle including three ultrasounds, an insemination, and a dose of Sucromate. Then another ~$600 for three subsequent ultrasounds, a twin pinch, and Banamine + Regumate following the pinch. Only to have her apparently abort sometime between days 26 and 48. I’m hauling her to a referral hospital tomorrow to confirm that she did abort and probably pull a uterine biopsy, so she’s not done wracking up bills for the season just yet. [And we won’t count the $3k+ vet bill the person who was supposed to be leasing her this season accumulated with my vet clinic and then refused to pay when the mare didn’t catch…]
If you’re replying to me, yes my mare was checked frequently and actually inseminated multiple times this round because she hadn’t ovulated on recheck (stud stands at the facility where she was, luckily).
Appears that the cost to keep a mare and its foal is being left out of the breeding expense. For me if we were to just keep the mare here to the point of weaning the foal away our base cost without the breeding fees/related vet expenses could easily be over $3,000
We have been buying specific weanlings that are of the breeding we desire for not much more. Also we know the gender and color,
The OP’s question was the cost to get the mare in foal, not the cost to keep the mare/raise the foal…
IME (Kentucky TB farms) if a mare arrives in the breeding shed needing to be tranq’d, she is walked out unbred.
Exactly my experience, or they ask if they can tranq, they don’t just tranq and then send a bill. I was a little surprised by it.
This mare is super easy to breed and my van driver said she was super quiet, that they tranq’ed her right off the van.
Yeah, mare and foal board can really vary and I’ve got a fixed fee for that.
I wanted to get an idea what others are paying because I think I’m on the high end of this. We don’t have a ton of vets dedicated to breeding and having all the equipment. I also kind of was on the fence about breeding this season so I guess I was at the mercy of who was available.
Oops so no stud fees or prelim exams …or anything.
Then a blood test and followup ultrasound combined cost around $300 i think? don’t really remember.
Couldn’t graze the mares for 5 months because of fescue …couldn’t use our pasture hay either, so i had to buy orchard/brome and that was an extra cost of about $1,000. alfalfa another 1,000.
so for the two foals to get to ground, around…2,500 ish.