Purchase price for an older approved stallion?

[Kyzteke]

@Molly Malone;5730761

I have been toying with keeping the colt I had this year as a stallion prospect if he doesn’t sell for exactly the same reasons. I don’t particularly want a stallion to be honest, I’d just like some pregnancies.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: I think most of us have been there!!

My answer was “learn to do most of it yourself.” My conception rate for chilled, shipped semen is 3-4x better now since I 1) changed vets, 2) learned to AI myself (ummm…as in I inseminate my own mares, NOT that I actually AI myself:eek:) and, 3) educated myself fairly intensely on equine repro so I can question my vet and even over-ride her decisions if I so choose.

None of my mares leave the farm. However we are facing a bit of a dilemma for next year, as my last remaining mature male horse is sold, so I have no testosterone left. And some of those mares can get pretty sneaky…

By the way, LC and pasture breeding can also be a bust. My stallion had close to a 100% conception rate via LC (pasture breeding or in-hand) the first 5 yrs I had him. The last year (and he was only 9 when I lost him, so not old) he only got 3 mares o/o 7 in foal…and one of them lost her pregnancy early on.

Without knowing the particulars of each mare, each cycle, each season it’s hard to speculate on what the problem is for the OP, but that’s actually what needs to happen…break each one down and learn where the vet made his errors.

[misita]

[QUOTE=Signature;5730271]

Bringing up your own stallion is even more costly though, by the time you get through training for the approvals, 100 day test, etc… way more expensive than buying an older one for sure. We’ll just stick with breeding to all that’s available - it’s easy and fun :)[/QUOTE]

Ditto on this. You’ll spend a large (not small) fortune getting him properly shown and approved either through a performance testing (30 and/or 70 day test) or through performance. Youngsters by a stallion who is not fully approved may prove very hard to sell.

AND… a really high quality stallion prospect IS going to be expensive.