the key is watching and paying attention...the troughs have to be long and narrow and bellies that are already full of hay to begin with :winkgrin: a 12 foot feeder here feeds 6, 13-22 mo old stallions just fine....and they don't squabble because their needs are met in the hay...but once they leave here they won't have such a choice so I feed grain of some sort....
horses that have every bite regimented into them won't/can't do well this way :no: ....and it [B]is[/B] the breeders JOB to make sure everyone gets his share....that comes before his "profit" :yes: but as a feeding style it can be done and done well....
Tamara in TNso the european bred successful hunters and jumpers I see are supppose to be the culls…? wow…
Its a very very common way to feed young horses and has been for generations. I feed my mares and foals in groups with no problems the foals when weaned are fed in groups until there get sold. As Tamara said not having horses that are hungary is a big key. No horse here is without hay and or grass 24/7 ever. Our incident of colic is very very rare, 3 cases in the last 20 plus years with 100’s of differant horses. The vets all say the two big reasons are 24/7 turn out and 24/7 access to good forage.
Looking over the figures seems PRETTY darn close AND also makes me wonder what I have gotten into!
I definitely need to hide that bookmark from my husband. 
A couple of my random observations…
I do foal feet every 2 weeks at $35. I have had almost no problems since doing this and mine are line horses. So that is $70/month. The mares are on a six week schedule.
Hay is $8-12/bale. No we don’t have grass and if I did, my irrigation bills would be through the roof. I keep 6 horses at the house and go through two to three bales a day.
I have a lot that I pay taxes on just for the horses, it is 1.17 acres and costs $2100/year, this is not including the $3400 on my primary residence, which also has 1.17 acres and other horses on it.
You all got off easy on the vet bills. I spent close to 16K in breeding and stud fees for two mares in the past 2 years and while one mare is finally prengant, who knows if it will have four legs and two eyes hopefully the legs are straight and it isn’t a small, plain , chestnut mare with a bad attitude that cribs or sticks it’s toungue out!
Hauling off manure costs me about $300/month, which is less than the bedding $265/25 yard.
Fly spray, I know it sounds petty costs a ton. I would say I usr 4 cans of Pyranna a month…about $40
I get my vaccines for cost through the hospital but my vet gives them. She is kind to me and gives me a discount…bless her, although she does use my processessor for radiographs and I do provide some small animal services.
I just had to get a new trailer, well maybe didn’t HAVE too but it does tend to keep bills down…38K
My stall cleaner/morning helper runs about $100/week, not including my vacations, where my housesitter is $50/day for 5-6 weeks but that is not all the horses and that is only for evening feeding stall rotation.
Training. I have the babies worked with with me and another person, figure $20/hour.
OH forgot I feed timothy to the babies $14.95/40lb bale and it lasts a little more than a day.
Ration balancer and suppliments are expensive too. Figure about $150/month.
Insurance is a killer and does require an exam, darn them. Maybe I should be insuring them for more as clearly it isn’t costing me $7500 to put this little cutie on the ground.
Did I leave off the cost of feeding my darn open mares? or my retired mares? My bad!
Oh, forgot. If I want to sell them, I need to advertise them.
I do ride my papers including my ISR (you have the price), IHF ($500), USEF, USDF and AHJA. Sometimes even PHR.
hang on, I just figured out how much money I am loosing and need to go throw up!
Does anyone have a nice made hunter for sale in the 75K range, it is starting to sound like a bargain!
Does the exchange rate play any part in why the European breeders are easier able to make money?? The dollar is no doing so well over there…$20,000 U.S. dollars does not have the same buying power in Europe as it does in the U.S. (I am talking in general…not just horses).
I know NOTHING about this subject…I am not a breeder…I was just reading this and had a thought.
Dressage72,
Diva in your link in the pics is beautiful!! What is her breeding? Lovely head and type!!
I have a lot that I pay taxes on just for the horses, it is 1.17 acres and costs $2100/year, this is not including the $3400 on my primary residence, which also has 1.17 acres and other horses on it.
What about an Ag exemption? Have you looked into that to help you save some $$$?
Dont think so. The mid level breeders like a lot of us here are struggling over there too. They are more controlled as well that we are over here too. Some bigger breeders can make a dime here and there, but the thing with business is the more money you make, the more you spend! :lol:
Thank you STF! She is by De Laurentis out of Deseree who is Dinard L/Landino/Pilot etc etc. I bred her for dressage but if anybody saw today either she REALLY got the jumper lines coming through or she thinks she is a Lipizzan! She practically did an airs above ground all four feet in the air at a stand still! 
Hey, those will be some spectacular piroettes then!! LOL
Great stallion and very interesting dam line for here in the states. Her pics are elegant too. Lovely cross!!!
I just bred my mare to a little welsh stallion and I thought it wouldn’t be too expensive. Stud fee was only $350.00 a few days board…
Well, so far I’ve spent about $1,750.00 and I figure without any problems I will have $3,000 in the foal by the time it’s standing to nurse. I should have just bought a weanling…
I should have just bought a weanling…
:lol: :lol:
I was just telling my breeding friends that I wanted to get out of breeding mares all together and would pay to lease on of their mares for custom foals, then they could do all the foal watch and long nights while I slept warmly in my bed! :lol:
dressage72…do you really, truly have a mini mare named “Ms. New Booty” and her daughter, “Shanaynay”?
Very cool thread 
Byebye hopes and dreams, haha!
Well, take these comments for what they are worth; I don’t have a dog in this fight, as I’m one of those “dreaded” hobby breeders plus I live in the midwest so my costs are significantly lower than they are for a lot of you.
But as far as some of these costs being choices in how we raise our horses I really do think that is true. I had an enormously eye-opening experience in raising warmbloods. My husband has immediate family in Holland and I was super excited to get to spend several days sort of “behind the scenes” at a major, major breeding farm there. Beautiful facility, amazing horses, TOTALLY run like a large agri-business. Sure, the stallions, sales horses and show horses were kept in stalls with some turn-out each day. But pregnant mares and mares with foals were outside in huge, beautiful pastures. They were checked on every day and carefully monitored, but not inside. The most shocking thing to me was how the weanlings/yearlings/youngstock were fed in groups (maybe a couple dozen at a time, divided by age). They were basically allowed to come inside a huge barn, much like a large, modern dairy barn with a central trough running the length of the barn, full of feed (but in the winter full of hay). Everyone ate in a relatively orderly fashion and then were let back out. Most amazing of all-the footing is grooved concrete, no bedding. And in the winter they spend several hours inside eating hay in the same conditions. I was shocked and asked about lameness problems; the response was that these owners felt that the horses were more sound and had stronger legs because of spending so much time on the concrete. And to be honest I didn’t see skinny malnourished and bullied youngsters. Now, maybe they do have a very high amount of cripples later down the road. But what is a fact is that they have a high proportion of horses that go onto to show internationally in both dressage and jumping. People around the world come to buy their horses. Would I raise horses like this? Probably not; did the horses seem like they were suffering or at a disadvantage? No. These are serious businessmen though, and they do have an eye on the bottom line while producing an amazing product. Can you imagine the cost of having several hundred young horses stalled for the majority of the day? Astronomical!
So perhaps there is some merit in the idea that some of these high costs are our choice? I never really thought about it that way, but certainly this topic has brought that to the forefront of my mind and perhaps we have no room to complain about the costs when some of them are made by choice? It is our choice to keep trying to breed that mare who just won’t get pregnant. It is our choice to use a lot of bedding by keeping our horses in. It is our choice to insure all our stock (I don’t actually do that, but a lot of breeders do). I don’t know, but this topic has provided me with a lot of food for thought that just never occured to me before.
They will probably have less cripples due to the fact they get exercise. And my thought on the weanling that would be undernourished in a herd situation is not a weanling that would make a good show prospect period. Not enough confidence. So the herd figures it out for you. Dem horses are smart.
Mary
[QUOTE=BravAddict;2606821]
dressage72…do you really, truly have a mini mare named “Ms. New Booty” and her daughter, “Shanaynay”?
Very cool thread Byebye hopes and dreams, haha![/QUOTE]
I really and truly do!
[QUOTE=Tamara in TN;2606576]
the key is watching and paying attention…the troughs have to be long and narrow and bellies that are already full of hay to begin with :winkgrin: a 12 foot feeder here feeds 6, 13-22 mo old stallions just fine…and they don’t squabble because their needs are met in the hay…but once they leave here they won’t have such a choice so I feed grain of some sort…
horses that have every bite regimented into them won't/can't do well this way :no: ....and it [B]is[/B] the breeders JOB to make sure everyone gets his share....that comes before his "profit" :yes: but as a feeding style it can be done and done well....
Tamara in TN[/QUOTE]
I do something similar. In the summer we feed from ground pans BUT there are several more pans than horses lined up all along the fence. For one the horses quicky learn the pecking order and line up accordingly at feeding time. The alpha ones ARE at the head of the line. The passive ones just go to the end of the line. So, there is little squabbling. Everyone has their own bowl. There are also more bowls than horses so as the ones at the beginning begin to shove the next one in line everyone just moves down one. They do play “musical bowls” but everyone eats.
STF,
I have looked into an ag exception and it requires 2.5 acres. I have 2.34. It is very depressing! But thanks for providing some constructive information, I seriously appreciate it, you would be shocked at how many don’t know about things like this.
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;2606847]
Well, take these comments for what they are worth; I don’t have a dog in this fight, as I’m one of those “dreaded” hobby breeders plus I live in the midwest so my costs are significantly lower than they are for a lot of you.
But as far as some of these costs being choices in how we raise our horses I really do think that is true. I had an enormously eye-opening experience in raising warmbloods. My husband has immediate family in Holland and I was super excited to get to spend several days sort of “behind the scenes” at a major, major breeding farm there. Beautiful facility, amazing horses, TOTALLY run like a large agri-business. Sure, the stallions, sales horses and show horses were kept in stalls with some turn-out each day. But pregnant mares and mares with foals were outside in huge, beautiful pastures. They were checked on every day and carefully monitored, but not inside. The most shocking thing to me was how the weanlings/yearlings/youngstock were fed in groups (maybe a couple dozen at a time, divided by age). They were basically allowed to come inside a huge barn, much like a large, modern dairy barn with a central trough running the length of the barn, full of feed (but in the winter full of hay). Everyone ate in a relatively orderly fashion and then were let back out. Most amazing of all-the footing is grooved concrete, no bedding. And in the winter they spend several hours inside eating hay in the same conditions. I was shocked and asked about lameness problems; the response was that these owners felt that the horses were more sound and had stronger legs because of spending so much time on the concrete. And to be honest I didn’t see skinny malnourished and bullied youngsters. Now, maybe they do have a very high amount of cripples later down the road. But what is a fact is that they have a high proportion of horses that go onto to show internationally in both dressage and jumping. People around the world come to buy their horses. Would I raise horses like this? Probably not; did the horses seem like they were suffering or at a disadvantage? No. These are serious businessmen though, and they do have an eye on the bottom line while producing an amazing product. Can you imagine the cost of having several hundred young horses stalled for the majority of the day? Astronomical!
So perhaps there is some merit in the idea that some of these high costs are our choice? I never really thought about it that way, but certainly this topic has brought that to the forefront of my mind and perhaps we have no room to complain about the costs when some of them are made by choice? It is our choice to keep trying to breed that mare who just won’t get pregnant. It is our choice to use a lot of bedding by keeping our horses in. It is our choice to insure all our stock (I don’t actually do that, but a lot of breeders do). I don’t know, but this topic has provided me with a lot of food for thought that just never occured to me before.[/QUOTE]
Well said. :yes::yes:
